I Will Follow Thee
by Dame Niamh
Summary: Hagrid's love story. The mystery of the half-giantess deepens; who and what is she that the Dark Lord fears her! Read and review!
1. Chapter 3 The Time Before

**_Author's Note: _**_ This story is **NOT** a sequel to, or prequel of, or continuation of, "To The Honour of the Mother."   The only connexion is that you will (eventually) find out who caught Hermione's bridal bouquet from "To The Honour."  In this tale, Hermione, Harry and Ron are fourteen years old._ **_Disclaimer:_**_  All the Harry Potter characters you recognise were created by J.K. Rowling and are hers entirely.  The rest are from my own imagination.  Thanks and praise to OzRatBag2, that most excellent and resourceful of collaborators.   Blessed be!  DN___ ** Prologue:  The Thane's Daughter**

Pouring ice-rain, howling wind.  Slippery, sticky mud.  Blood everywhere, flying from sword-cuts, running from wounds, spraying from slashed veins, mixing with the mud and the ice.  Booted feet churned the mud, bodies slipped and slid and fell and rolled in it.  The ear-splitting clang of iron on iron mixed with the roar of battle and the groans of the dying.

Helgarda Ungarnsdottir hefted her broadsword in both hands, fixed her eyes on the neck of the barbarian in front of her, and beheaded him.  She screamed in triumph and whirled to slice off the raised sword-arm of another, whose blood flew out and coated her arms and her sword.  She wiped blood out of her eyes with her dripping sleeve.  Three of the enemy encircled her, she crouched, broadsword in one hand and dagger in the other.  A glance found her father's powerful figure, whirling a double-bladed battleaxe around his head.  She shifted her weight, testing the three menacing warriors.  A hand seized her hair and bent her head backwards.  The sword descended towards her throat: "Ungarn! _Fath_—" 

_"—er," _and she lay still, the breath knocked out of her.  She waited, unmoving, until her heart ceased hammering.  She hoped the enemy thought her dead.  Her ears rang from the shrill screech that had accompanied her fall.  Gradually her hearing returned, but not the noise of battle.  She willed sensation into her hands and felt that they lay upon dry leaves, not wet, slick mud.  She listened, and heard no battle cry, no screams.  She slitted her eyes open, and saw not the bloody ground of her father's holding, but oak and maple leaves of red, orange and gold, floating down from the huge trees in an autumn forest where she seemed to be.

A bird sang somewhere.  She smelled mushrooms and forest herbs and, after a while, wood-smoke.  She sat upright, her wet, bloody clothes clinging to her stickily.  There was no one around; she was alone.  _Where was she, what was this place?_  A moment ago she had been fighting not just for her life, but also for her father's kingdom.  Her sister-in-law, Gudrun Sjogrunsdottir, crouched in a cave with her brother Erik's children, Leif and Birgit; she prayed they were safe. Erik was somewhere on his long-eyed ship; she prayed for his return.  Although her brother was mighty in battle, he was not home to stand with their father.  She was the thane's daughter, and fight she would to her last breath.  _Ungarn!_  Where was her father?  Without her, could he and his men hold off the greater numbers of barbarians, determined to kill him and take his land and his hall, his busy seaport and his fleet of ships?

She rose shakily, holding on to the trunk of a soaring ash tree.  She looked around.  She was near the edge of a forest, and she could see some farmland in the distance.  "Ungarn!" she called.  "Ungarn Helmansson! Father!"   Nothing. Nothing but the call of a bird broke the silence.  She looked about for her sword, but it and her battle dagger were nowhere to be found.  She was unarmed, defenceless.  Slowly she walked forward.  _This is not my father's holding," _she thought.  _This is not even our land; I am somewhere else, but where?_  She looked upwards through the brilliant leaves: blue sky, bright sun.  It was autumn here– _but at home it was almost the end of winter!_  Helgarda looked at her blood-smirched hands and clothing.  She felt her hair: stiff with blood; her coronet was still on her head, caked with blood.  _I must find the people here, and hope that they are not barbarians,_ she thought.  _First I must make myself presentable.  Anyone seeing me, a maid covered in blood, would run away screaming!"_

Her ears led her to a small stream, trickling and babbling over stones.  A tiny, beautiful roe deer drank from the clear water.  As she stood, holding her breath so as not to disturb the creature, the deer raised her head and looked at her with wise brown eyes, unafraid.  She knelt and pulled some tender plant leaves, and held them out.  The deer approached and delicately ate the leaves from her hand.  As she did so, the blood disappeared from Helgarda's hand.  It evaporated from her clothing, her face, and her hair.  The roe deer sniffed Helgarda's forehead with a soft black nose, then ran off into the forest.

Helgarda swung her braid of hair over her shoulder.  Clean, shining yellow-blonde hair, neatly plaited – no blood, no mud.  She took off her coronet:  the thin red gold circlet shone, the small garnets in it glittered, blood red.  She looked down at her skirt and knitted tunic:  clean.  Even her boots were clean!  She looked closely at her hands: callused from hard work, but clean, the nails neatly trimmed and clean beneath.  She stared after the little deer.  There was surely magic at work here.  Good magic? She stood up and began to walk resolutely towards the farmland she had glimpsed through the trees._  Wherever I am, I am not home.  I can only hope to find my way back in time to save my father._

The forest ended, and Helgarda found herself on a broad path that led through green fields planted with wheat and other grains.  _Someone must be nearby to farm these fields,_ she thought.  _They must not fear, for they have no rock fences.  Or the deer do not eat the grain._  She plucked a long stalk of oats, heavy with grains, and chewed on it as she walked.  She rounded a copse of trees, and stood stock-still.  She faced an enormous structure – she had never seen its like.  Did people live in it?  She had heard of, but never seen, castles.  A powerful king must have built this one; who else would have slaves enough to bring the countless stones and mortar them together to build a hall the size of a mountain? 

Slowly she approached.  It was beautiful, with large windows with arched tops, carvings over the many doors, colourful banners fluttering from the tops of looming towers. There _were_ people - children, from the look of them, wearing black robes over their odd-looking clothes, playing on the green fields surrounding the castle, throwing balls or smiting them with mallets, rolling hoops, tumbling, sitting together in small groups.  As Helgarda walked closer, she could hear their laughter.  So, this was a peaceful place, with happy children!

One of the children, a girl with thick, curling brown hair, looked up from her scroll as Helgarda neared.  The child stood up, her dark eyes enormous, took a stick from her robe, pointed it at Helgarda and shouted something unintelligible.  Helgarda smiled and knelt, to be closer to the child.  "My name is Helgarda, daughter of Ungarn," she said.  The little girl took a deep breath, once more pointed the stick at Helgarda, and said something else, also unintelligible.  

"Mayhap we don't speak the same language," Helgarda said.  "I don't understand you."

"Now you do," said the child.  Helgarda sat down hard with surprise.  _Magic._  How else could she suddenly understand a foreign tongue?  

Helgarda remembered her manners. "I'm glad to meet you," she said.  "And I'm glad we can talk together.  What is your name?"

"Hermione Granger," said the girl.  "You don't look like a Muggle.  What are you?"

"_What _am I? I'm the thane's daughter," said Helgarda.  "I don't know how I came here.  A few minutes ago my father and I were battling the barbarians, and I thought I would die.  Then I found myself in that forest back there.  I was covered in blood, but a little deer came to me and ate leaves from my hand, and the blood disappeared."

"Yes, very well, someone magicked you here.  What _are_ you?" Hermione asked impatiently.

"I _told_ you.  I'm the thane's daughter.  Ungarn is the most powerful thane in Nordland.  The barbarians from the east have invaded our country, and they want my father's holding.  I have to get back there to help him to protect it.  My brother is out to sea; his wife is trying to keep his children safe.  What's a Muggle?"

Hermione gathered up her things from the grass.  "I think you had better come with me," she said.  

"Not so fast, young lady," said Helgarda.  "Before I move from this spot, I must say that you, who are old enough to know better, have shown no hospitality to a stranger.  If you were lost in my land, I would greet you cordially, bring you to my father's hall, introduce you to my family, seat you at supper (and give you the best of the food) and ask you to tell your tale. Don't your people teach you children anything?"

Hermione looked down.  "I'm sorry, Helgarda," she said.  "You must understand the _consternation_ I felt upon seeing you.  After all, I've only seen one giant (well, half-giant) in my life, and here you are, another one, and obviously not a Wizard, or you wouldn't be lost. Muggles are people who aren't Wizards, but you couldn't be that either.  Please, come with me.  This is Hogwarts, a school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and we're students.  Our Headmaster, Professor Dumbledore, will surely be able to help you.  And," she added, a dimple appearing in her cheek, "it's almost dinnertime.  You'll _love_ the food."  She held up a hand, Helgarda took it, and together they set off for the entrance to the great hall.  Giant? Half-giant?  What did the child mean?

"Hey! Hey!  Hermione!"  They stopped to see who was shouting.  Two lads came running, full tilt, both carrying brooms.  _Were they serfs?_  They were wearing black robes like the other students', like Hermione's. They fetched up in front of Helgarda, their eyes round.  "Cor!" said the fellow with red hair and a sprinkle of freckles across his nose.  "You're a _giant.  _I mean," he corrected himself, "a half-giant_e_ss_. _Wow."  

The other boy had dark hair and an engaging smile.  He held up his hand: "I'm Harry, and that's Ron.  Pleased to meet you."  _Well, _Helgarda thought, _someone here has some manners. What is that on his face, sitting on his nose, in front of his eyes?  I mustn't stare, it's rude._

"I'm Helgarda Ungarnsdottir," she answered, and took his hand. 

 Harry looked up at her: "You're Norse," he said. "I don't think you're from _now,_ though."

Helgarda nodded.  "I don't think so either.  However, as Hermione has discovered, I am neither a Wizard nor a Muggle, and I don't know how I got here."

They entered the building, and were met by a nasty-looking individual who took one look at Helgarda and ran off as fast as his bowed legs would carry him, shouting, "Master Dumbledore!  Master Dumbledore!"

"Am I so frightening?" asked Helgarda.  

"Not at all," said Harry.  "Not any more than Hagrid, and a great deal prettier."  The children all laughed.

"Who is Hagrid? Is he Norse as well?  That would be helpful, "Helgarda asked.

Ron laughed.  "I don't think he's Norse, but he _is_ a half-giant, and _that_ should be helpful."

Helgarda frowned.  "What is a giant? What am I a _half_ of?"

Hermione stood still, and with her, the boys and Helgarda.  People were coming into the great hall.  They were certainly not children, and they seemed to be herding the children along.  They were adults –and suddenly, Helgarda understood.  She was _half _again as tall as any of these people.  She looked down at Hermione, Harry and Ron.  "Is that what _giant_ means, bigger than everyone else?  And a half-giant is half again as big as everyone else?"

"It does," said a bass voice in back of her, startling her.  She turned and looked directly into a pair of bright beetle-black eyes.  "Welcome, lady.  My name is Rubeus Hagrid."

"Yes," said Helgarda.  "You're the _other _one. " The man was as tall as her own people; she looked straight into his eyes, and through them saw her father.  Suddenly, her strength left her.  She swayed on her feet, and Hagrid caught her easily and bore her over to sit on a bench.  She bowed her head forward on her lap and began to weep.  "Father!  Oh, Father!  Bring me home!"

A lady wearing a pointed, wide-brimmed hat and a long gown of shiny green cloth hastened towards them, a white-bearded grandsire in tow.  "We must help her, poor thing," she said.  She sat down next to Helgarda and put a comforting hand on the weeping half-giantess' back.  "I am Professor McGonagall," she said. 

The old gentleman, who, Hermione whispered, was Headmaster Dumbledore, sat on her other side, and took her hand.  "She's been hurled here from long ago and far away, " he said.  "Her father's fighting a losing battle.  I don't know what we can do, but we can try."

Hagrid offered a kerchief, and Helgarda mopped her streaming eyes.  "Thanks, " she said to McGonagall and Dumbledore.  "Everyone here seems so kind."

Dumbledore patted her hand.  "We are kind people!  Now let's go in and have dinner, and you can meet the students and faculty of Hogwarts.  While you are here, you are one of us."

Helgarda stood up.  Hagrid stepped to her side and held out his fist for her to place her hand upon, the old way, and together they walked into the dining hall.

The cheerful buzz of conversation amongst the students seated at the four long tables stopped completely as they entered the Great Hall.  Master Dumbledore held up his hand, and all turned towards him:  "Masters and students, we have a guest.  She is a Norse lady, brought here by magic, and she will stay with us until we can find a way to send her home. "  He gestured to Helgarda, who stepped forward.

"I am Helgarda Ungarnsdottir.  I thank you for your hospitality," she said.  Hagrid led her to his place at the Masters' table, and a chair appeared next to his. The Headmaster spoke a blessing, and food appeared on the tables.  Helgarda was astonished.  Never had she seen such a feast!  Great platters of grilled fowl, roasts of meat that sliced themselves when anyone reached out for a serving; baked whole fish with bright red cooked lobsters garnishing them, boats of sauces savoury and spicy; vast dishes of vegetables wafting delectable aromas, loaves of bread dark and white, crocks of butter, whole wheels of cheese, and fruit piled high in footed bowls.  The mingled smells made her mouth water, and she recalled that she had not eaten that day.

Helgarda stared down at the plate in front of her.  Never had she seen such a plate – snowy white, thin as a leaf, with magical designs of flowers that bloomed, made seeds and bloomed again all around the edge.  She drew her eating dagger from its scabbard in her girdle and set it down next to the plate, flipped the edge of the tablecloth over her lap as would any well-brought-up lady.  She looked around for a serf, to wash her hands, and as she did so, a wee elf with basin and ewer appeared at her elbow.  He poured water over her hands and handed her a clean napkin.  She smiled her thanks.  _"Tak," _he said.  A Norse elf!  

Helgarda waited patiently for her hosts to put food on her plate.  After a few minutes, it occurred to her that customs might be different here.  She leaned over to Hagrid:  "Shall I help myself to food?" 

 "O'course!" he boomed, brandishing a lobster.  "This time o'year, the lobsters is terrific!"  He put the lobster on her plate.

"Thanks and praise for food and drink," said Helgarda, and piled her plate with roast fowl, fish, and some of the vegetables that smelled so delicious.  She looked about for beer. Hagrid understood: he motioned to a House Elf to pour some of the spiced pumpkin juice into her footed goblet.  "They don't allow strong drink here," he whispered.  Helgarda nodded her head, her mouth full.  "Shall I open yer lobster for ye?" Hagrid offered. 

"Thanks, I can do it easily," replied Helgarda.  She laid the heavy haft of her eating dagger on top of her lobster's thick claw, took aim and smote the haft with her fist.  The lobster shell shattered, and she withdrew the tasty white meat with the point of the dagger and offered it to Hagrid in courtesy for his kindness.  He blushed almost as red as the lobster and accepted the meat.  This was, indeed, a _most_ unusual lady!

Pleasant music sounded, and Helgarda looked for the bard.  There was none, but a beautiful harp was playing itself on one side of the room.  _Magic._  She took a piece of brown bread, which had nuts and raisins in it.  As she reached for the cheese, she noticed a handsome grey and black striped cat pacing along the floor in between the tables.  She turned to Hagrid: "What a fine cat!  There will be no mice where she prowls."   Hagrid laughed, his teeth white in his bushy brown beard.  "Now, Miss Helgarda," he said, "That's no ordinary cat.  Just watch her."  As he spoke, the cat transformed itself into Professor McGonagall, pointed hat, stylish gown and all.  Helgarda thought her eyes would pop from her head.  She took a big swallow from her goblet.  Professor McGonagall smiled as she passed; there was definitely a feline air about her.  

_Nobody at home will ever believe me,_ Helgarda thought, _if I tell them about this place and these people._  She looked around her as she ate her dinner.  The students, all of them in black gowns over their clothing, sat at the long, long tables, each one under a different banner.  She could see Hermione, Ron and Harry at a table under a red and gold banner with the device of a large, catlike beast.  Was that the banner of their tribe?  Next to them, another long table filled with students stood under a green and silver banner with a coiled snake on it.  Another tribe?  Her sharp eyes noticed three boys at that table; two had the thick, stupid look of the meanest serfs.  They were receiving what seemed to be instructions from a pale boy with white-blond hair.  He had the nasty expression of someone who disliked everyone and was greatly disliked in turn.  Her hand itched to whack his skinny bottom.  _That was odd; she and her people loved children, would never strike them, only talk sharply to them if they misbehaved.  She could feel evil radiating from him, a mere child.  What kind of place was this, where children could be evil?_

 The adults, who were the Masters, sat at another table set crosswise to those.  She and Hagrid were seated at the end of the Masters' table.  Master Dumbledore she had met, and Professor McGonagall (when she was not a cat), and the rest were as odd an assortment as ever she had seen.  A small woman dressed all in green, including her wimple and veil, talked with a stout man in a long, flowing robe whose colours seemed to change from minute to minute.   

A tall, thin man all in black sat crouched over his plate like a spider, talking to nobody.  Another woman (was it a woman?  Her hair was chopped off at her neck, and she wore breeches) talked with a kobold.  Surely a kobold, but carrying a large book and what seemed to be a mariner's compass.  A wee man, the size of a dwarf but with proportionate arms and legs, was deep in conversation with a tall, thin woman who waved her hands about as she spoke.  She wore many necklaces of beads and bracelets all the way up her arms, and had an abstracted air about her.  _Strange, strange people; I've never seen their like_, thought Helgarda.

The kobold's compass reminded Helgarda of her beloved brother Erik.  None had expected the barbarians to attack while winter still gripped the land, and so he had gone to sea.  He had finished grieving the death of their mother, and it was time for him to travel and trade.  Erik would have been amazed at this place, these people – and he travelled all the time!

She wiped her hands and mouth on her napkin and sat up straight, comfortably full.  The other masters (most of them) turned to her and introduced themselves.  Helgarda smiled at each one, and thanked them all for their kindness, hoping she would remember _some_ of their names, which were mostly quite peculiar. 

 "I would tell you of my home," she said.  "I am a bard, and perhaps you would enjoy hearing one of our sagas."

"Yes!" chorused two elderly twin sisters.  "Please do sing for us!"  Almost all of the masters clapped their hands, and she rose, her chair startling her as it pushed back by itself.  The little Norse elf appeared at her elbow, bowed and took her sleeve between two gnarled fingers, conducting her to a seat a few feet to the side.  A drum leaned against the seat; it was a type familiar to her.  She looked to Hagrid in surprise; he winked and laid his finger alongside his nose, nodding.

Helgarda seated herself, took up the drum, and established a stately rhythm on it.  Shortly she began her song, a stirring tale of the battle between a hero of her people and a fearsome ogre.  The students swivelled around on their benches, and waved their wands at her.  _So they can understand the Norse,_ she thought.  She was a skilful teller of tales; she had all of them in the palm of her hand, gasping as the ogre hurled blasts of fire; applauding as the hero fought them off.  Helgarda ended the tale with a volley of drumbeats; the students cheered and applauded, and she bowed to all.

Master Dumbledore rose from his high-backed chair and came around to her as she returned to the table.  "I haven't heard _Beowulf_ sung so perfectly in a hundred years," he remarked.  "You have a gift, young lady."

Helgarda bowed humbly.  "Thank you, sir.  I don't have a lot of time to practise the bardic arts, but I do love the old tales.  My mother, Walfryda, you should hear her sing—" and abruptly she sat down, overcome by homesickness, grief for her mother, worry for her father and for her brother's children.  She looked up, her eyes full of tears.

"Master, you are a great Wizard," she said.  "Will you send me home?  I don't wish to seem ungrateful, and everyone has been so kind and generous here, but I fear for Ungarn, and I must go home."

"I have begun my work," pronounced Dumbledore.  "First I must find out how you came here, and then, _why._  Nothing happens without a reason, and the Dark Ones cause confusion and consternation for their own ends.  They wish to change or control an event in your time, and my belief is that they got you out of the way so you would not prevent them from doing it.  Or, they wish to change our world, here, and they will do it in your time."

Helgarda shook her head.  "Master, I'm completely confused. Still, I will help all I can.  I know nothing of magic, but perhaps – perhaps, our old sagas contain some clues."

"The child's exhausted," stated Professor McGonagall, at Helgarda's elbow.  "Come, my dear.  There's a lovely room in Gryffindor just waiting for you, with a private bath.  A good night's sleep will do wonders, and tomorrow's another day."  With surprising strength, she pulled Helgarda along towards the grand staircase. 

Helgarda called "Good night," and the entire assemblage stood up and chorused, "Good night, Helgarda." 

Hagrid's black eyes twinkled as he watched her go.  He sighed deeply.  "Lovely lady, she is.  I hate to think of it, but I suppose she must return to her home."  His heart had leaped in his bosom at his first glimpse of the comely half-giantess, with her blonde braid down to her heels, her fair face and noble carriage, and that selfsame heart had beat along with the drum as she sang the saga in her clear, powerful voice.  Professor Dumbledore rested his hand on Hagrid's shoulder.  His eyes were filled with compassion.  "My good man, it's going to be hard for you to part with her."

Hagrid nodded.  "After all these years alone – a beautiful half-giantess, a sweet and a good, kind lady –" He shook his shaggy head, and his eyes glinted with tears.  "Master Dumbledore, I think I'm in love with her.  I want to go with her if she must go back."

Dumbledore stroked his beard.  "I don't blame you, Rubeus, but your home is here at Hogwarts.  I'd rather try to find a way to keep her here. Then," he pulled two pieces of candy out of the air, unwrapped one and put it in his mouth and handed the other to Hagrid, "I think of her poor father, who must be frantic at her disappearance, and the two little children, her brother's children…" He shook his head.  "I'm off to my study, to assess the situation," he said.  "Good night, Rubeus."

Hagrid sat for a few minutes, sipping at his goblet of pumpkin juice.  A looming shadow at his shoulder made him turn around:  "I've got just the thing for you, Hagrid.  It's no example to the students to have you moping about over a hank of blonde hair and an overflowing bodice.  Take this.  It will restore you to your senses."  The long, chemical-stained hand put a small phial on the table, a black cloak swirled, and the Potions Master was gone.

Hagrid scowled after him.  "I won't take yer anti-love potion, yer mis'rable git," he huffed.  He left the phial on the table, went out of the hall and walked back to his snug cottage.  Fang greeted him with enthusiasm.  He stirred up his fire, found his pipe, and settled down with the dog at his feet.  "Ye'd like her, Fang," he said.


	2. Chapter 1 The Scientific Method

**Chapter 1.  The Scientific Method**

Rubeus Hagrid waved his hand at the woodpile next to the hearth, and a split log heaved itself up and settled on top of the coals.

"I shouldn't have called Professor Snape a miserable git, even if he wasn't there to hear it," he told Fang.  "He's always looked after me, you know, we go back to our boyhood, and even if he has taken some odd turns, I've looked after him all these years."

Fang whined and turned over in his sleep, lying on his back with all four paws in the air.  Hagrid scratched his stomach with the toe of his boot.

"I know he means well," ruminated Hagrid, "but I don't think he understands that I've always hoped to find a lady to love.  He likes being alone; I tolerate it because I have to, but given the choice…" He puffed on his pipe, and the fragrant smoke drifted into the air and shaped itself into a fair face.  He sighed.  Then, he frowned.  

"Overflowing bodice?  How does _he_ know whether or not her bodice is overflowing?  She has a lovely shape (here, he blushed) but she was wearing a thick knitted tunic, and –" He paused, confused.  "Maybe he can see through clothing…Death Eaters do have some strange talents. Now, I don't think I like the thought of him seeing through the lady's' clothing…"  

Mrs Susan Dowd, the manager of the kitchen elves, made her rounds through the dining-hall as usual.  She was about to exit through the kitchen, seeing everything in perfect order, when she noticed a small phial on the Masters' table.  _Hum, _she thought to herself, _what's this, then?  Mayhap it's someone's medicine.  I'd better give it to Poppy Pomfrey.  _She _bespoke_ a House Elf, and little Olaf presented himself.  

"Olaf, ye've been sitting by the fire bragging about serving Miss Helgarda, have ye not?" she frowned.  The little fellow twisted his pillowslip in his gnarled hands.  "Ja," he whispered.  "She is most fine princess, Tanesdottir." 

"Well," said Susan, "If ye behave, ye can serve her tomorrow.  Now, take this up to Madam Pomfrey and tell her someone left it on the Masters' table."  Olaf took the phial and toddled off in the direction of the moving staircases.

He hastened through the darkened corridors, trembling, because he was terrified of the roving ghosts that floated through walls and along hallways, singing, reciting, and sometimes moaning to themselves.  He was almost at the hospital door when he bumped directly into Bjarnadr, a fellow elf who was usually found in the dungeons.  

"What hast thou there, Olaf?" Bjarnadr demanded.  "It looks like Master Snape's potion, I know his phials, I've cleaned them until my hands are wrinkled like prunes."

"Bjarnadr, no, go away," whimpered Olaf.  "This is for Madam Pomfrey.  My boss will b_eat_ me if I don't give it to her."  He held the phial behind his back, backing away from Bjarnadr.

"Thou hast become stupid in thy old age, Olaf," stated Bjarnadr.  "MY boss will string me up by my toenails in the dungeon if I don't return his property; dost thou want to be strung up along with me?"

"No, no," pleaded Olaf, shivering.  He held out the phial, which Bjarnadr seized, tucking it into a pocket in his pillowslip.  Bjarnadr then made for the downward staircases, hoping that his master would be pleased.  Olaf made his way back to the kitchens, relieved to see that Mrs Dowd had already left for the evening.

On the way to the dungeons, Bjarnadr stopped to play a game of dice with some of his fellows who worked in the laundries.  They passed around a stolen bottle of wine, pilfered from Master Dumbledore's private wine cellar.  It was not long before Bjarnadr was tipsy, and he barely made back to the dungeons, where he collapsed on top of his mattress, snoring, the phial forgotten.  Indeed, it was no longer his; it had rolled out of his pocket while he was playing dice, and into the middle of the chamber floor, where it was discovered the next morning by a slatternly she-elf who uncorked it, sniffed it, hurriedly recorked it and tossed it into a wastebasket.  The wastebasket was dumped into the general trash, and the phial made its way to the garbage-midden in back of Professor Sprout's greenhouse.

Ron Weasley, making compost for Professor Sprout, sifted through the garbage-midden, looking for odds and ends that might be suitable for composting.  He found the long-suffering phial, wondering why it was there and noting that it was still full of – whatever it was.  It didn't make sense; when one was given a phial of medicine by Madam Pomfrey, one uncorked it, tossed it down quickly (hopefully, ahead of its awful taste) and the phial then disappeared, to appear back where it had come from – Professor Snape's laboratory.  One didn't find phials, full or empty, lying about.  He pocketed it and finished his work.

At luncheon time, Harry came by to collect Ron, and together they went into the dining hall.  "Look at this," Ron said, holding the top of his pocket open so Harry could peer in at the phial.  "It's still full. What do you think of that?"

"I can't imagine it.  D'you think someone was given a dose of medicine and didn't want to take it?  We'd better give it back to Madam Pomfrey and let her figure it out."

"I've got a better idea.  Let's try to find who it was meant for, and then we can give it to them, so Madam Pomfrey won't fuss at them."***

Ron looked at the phial.  It was hard to tell whether the glass of the phial or the liquid within was blue; he tilted it slightly.  The glass was blue.  He racked his brain to try to remember one of his Potions classes in which Professor Snape discussed phials, containers and tablets.  Unfortunately, he had no better luck than ever he did when trying to remember Potions.  He loathed the subject terribly, and try as he might, he could not keep any of it in his head.  He turned to Harry:  "Do you remember _why _a potion would be put into a coloured phial?"

Harry considered.  "Well—oh, that's _beer_; you put beer in brown bottles so it won't go flat."

"Well," Ron said, "this stuff doesn't have any bubbles in it.  Maybe it's gone flat already."

They moved over to make room for Hermione, who was carrying a larger than usual stack of books.  "Hi, Harry, Ron. I'm exhausted and I'm _starving.  _Pass me the sandwiches, will you, Ron?"  She helped herself to a large cheese and cucumber sandwich on brown bread and a roll stuffed with chicken salad. 

Ron sidled closer to her, and she looked at him curiously.  "What is it?  You're crowding me, and I'm trying to eat," she said around a mouthful of sandwich.

"I don't want anyone to hear me, " he said, and surreptitiously showed her the phial.  Hermione's eyes widened.  "Put it away," she said.  "We'll go up to Gryffindor Tower during the afternoon break.

***

Hermione and the two boys walked round the tower's balcony until they came to a pair of stone benches in a shady spot, away from the door and from any prying eyes.  For a while, Hermione studied the mysterious flask.  "Is it bubbling?" Ron asked. 

"No, it's still.  It's a little thick, like syrup, but it seems to flow like any normal liquid."  Hermione carefully eased the cork upwards in the phial's neck.

"Maybe we should cast a protective spell around it," said Harry.  "It might evaporate quickly, and then we'd never figure it out."  He took out his wand and circled the phial, held firmly in Hermione's fingertips, around its upper end, muttering what he hoped was a protection.  Then, Hermione gingerly removed the cork.

The three watched to see if there were any fumes arising from the liquid, or any spurts, or if the level of it sank.  Nothing happened.  Ron's nose quivered; he was the most sensitive to smell of any of them.

"What d'you think, Ron?"  He tentatively moved closer to the phial and took a cautious sniff.  

"Phew! It smells like vomit-flavoured jelly babies!  Ugh!"  He backed away, wrinkling his nose.

"Well, I might have known if I could tell what colour it really is."  Harry took the phial in his hand.  "Now, what kind of potion would be best if it was vomit-flavoured?"

Ron blew his nose heartily into his pocket-handkerchief.  "I didn't say it _was_ vomit-flavoured, I said it _smelled_ like it."

"True, there are many potions that smell one way and taste another.  Like cough medicine," said Hermione.  "The last one I had smelled nice, like cinnamon, and tasted like fish.  Disgusting."

"Well, this isn't telling us who's supposed to take it," stated Ron.  "How can we figure it out?"  Ron often said that he had forgotten more about Potions than he had ever learned.

Hermione took the phial back from Harry.  "We might as well try to find out," she said.  "_Revelatio_," and she pointed her wand at the phial.  "Look!" she breathed.  Mist was beginning to gather around the phial; it was grey, like fog.  It grew, expanded, and floated like a cloud above the phial.  Gradually it took the shape of a face.

Three jaws dropped.  _"Hagrid?" _

"Think he's sick?" asked Ron.  "He was fine this morning when he stopped by the greenhouse to get some vegetables for the magical animals."

"Hagrid's _never_ sick," agreed Harry.  "You know how he is; he doesn't eat red meat or fowl because it makes him cry when he thinks of "his animal brothers an' sisters," he takes lots of exercise running around after the magical creatures.  Well, he does like to go into Hogsmeade and get flown on butterbeer…" 

Hermione sniffed.  "I _told_ him that getting drunk is unhealthy," the virtuous Gryffindor stated, "but he says he only does it until he gets silly.  Maybe the potion's a hangover remedy."

"Hagrid with a hangover?  Never!" scoffed Ron.  "Still, that's what it might be.  If he's forgotten it, he'll be in for a terrible headache after his next bender.  We'd better get it to him."  And the three set off in search of Hagrid.


	3. Chapter 2 I Will Follow Thee

**Chapter Two:  The Time Before**

Ungarn Helmansson, fighting for his life, heard a blood-curdling scream he knew to be Helgarda's.  He could not stop fighting to look around for her; he prayed that her courage and strength would keep her alive.  The thane dispatched two barbarians with his double-bladed battleaxe, tripped up another and chopped his head off.  He fought back to back with his man Olaf, and the enemy began to give ground.  Prisoners were dragged off to a stockade.  Crouching on a rock pile nearby, the old bard Skjald began to sing.  His epic song terrified the barbarians' hearts, and they ran off, back to their ships.

Sadly, Ungarn paid his last respects to his dead. He would give each a hero's pyre, set afloat on a raft, to join the gods in Valhalla.  He saw to it that the wounded were taken away and cared for.  If only Erik would come home!  He searched everywhere for his daughter, but only her broadsword and battle dagger remained.  No one saw her go; Ungarn feared that the barbarians had taken her. At least she was not dead; they would have left her corpse on the bloody ground.  Worse, he thought, were she to be made a spear-bride for one of their stinking, hardly-human soldiers.

He made his way over to the cave that sheltered his family; the barbarians had burned his great Hall to the ground during the terrible night when they over-ran his land like rats, killing many in their sleep, tossing firebrands onto thatched roofs and burning others in their homes.  He found his daughter in law, Gudrun Sjogrunsdottir, caring for Erik's children.  She had lit a fire in the dim cave, and beckoned him to sit.  "Sit down, Father," she said, patting a thick skin on the stony floor. "Come, now.  You were victorious today; why so sad?"  She took his helm off his head and handed it to little Leif, who proudly bore it over to a rock shelf.  The little girl, Birgit, was already asleep.

"Thank you, daughter," Ungarn said.  He leaned back against the pile of skins, suddenly weary.  Gudrun brought over a skin of water and a cloth and began to wash his face and hands; she was like his own child.  Indeed, he had known her from birth.  He submitted to her kindly ministrations, and accepted a bowl of thick soup with a large chunk of bread in the middle of it.

"I'm worried about Helgarda," he said.  "She must have been taken by the barbarians; all that I have left of her is her sword and battle dagger."  

"Pity the barbarians who have taken her, " Gudrun stated.  "She will overcome them and end their lives, and then come back to us.  Would that I could have wielded my sword at her side!"

"Let us pray for her safe return," Ungarn said, beginning to eat his soup. He sighed. 

Leif climbed up on his lap and snuggled down, his mouth open like a baby bird's.  "Look at you!" exclaimed his grandfather "Are you yet a fledgling, that I should feed you?"  

Leif nodded his head vigorously, his mouth still open. Ungarn chuckled and put a piece of the soup-soaked bread in the child's mouth 

Leif made short work of the bread.  "Grandfather, am I big enough yet to go to sea?" he asked.  He was a tall child, already very strong for eight years of age, with huge hands and feet, and his father's bright red hair.

"Soon, soon, Leif Eriksson," said his mother. "Let's get your father home safe before we start losing track of you." 

 Leif sat up, twining the cord that held his grandfather's runestone in his hands.  "Father is on his way," he announced.

Ungarn looked closely at his grandson.  The child had stated a fact: he wasn't imagining it.  _How did he know?_  "Tell me, Leif," said Ungarn, "when did you start knowing things that nobody else knows?"

***

"My king, he may be a Seer," stated Skjald, limping over to the fire and accepting a bowl of soup from Gudrun. "When he was born, I brought him to the mineral springs and dipped him therein, as I have done every child born in your holding for more years than you have fingers and toes together.  When I did it, the water in the spring bubbled and whirled strangely, and my many-times-great grandfather spoke to me out of it:  "My grandson, it is time I returned," he said.

"I was so frightened I almost dropped the infant," Skjald continued.

"Why?" asked Ungarn.  "Aren't you a mage?  Wasn't your father a mage, and his before him, and so on to the egg of the world?"

"We have ever been so," answered Skjald.  "We sing our history, we brew tonics, we say blessings on the newborn and newly dead, we make sacrifices to the gods, perform marriages and cure boils. Never could we foresee:  that is forbidden."

"Apparently my grandson hasn't heard of this forbidding," rumbled Ungarn.  He put his arm around the boy. "What else do you see, Leif?"

Leif stared into the fire.  As he did so, a flame of the fire separated itself from the rest, and, as Leif turned around slowly, the flame leapt onto a rock shelf, where it hung, glowing, next to Ungarn's helm.  Ungarn leapt to his feet, spilling Leif onto the ground. Gudrun covered her eyes in awe. Skjald shrank back, trembling.  Then he stood up, and beat his staff against the floor three times.  "The world is changing," he said softly.  "All that we knew will change.  There is magic abroad in the world, as there was in the times before time.  From this day, nothing will be the same." He looked keenly at the boy.  Until this day, he, only he, had entry to the world of magic.  

An intelligence indiscernible to mankind watched as all the springs in Nordland began to boil and bubble, and an eight year old boy looked into his mother's campfire and saw his father's long-eyed ship a day's sailing away, with the storm that had lashed the land gathering momentum as it sped over the ocean towards the ship.  

Leif _saw_ the storm; saw his father's ship.  As if it were one of the little ships his grandfather carved for him out of scraps of wood, in his mind's eye Leif _lifted_ the ship, with its sailors, masts, sails and cargo, out of its place in the water and set it down on the muddy earth outside of the charred remains of his grandfather's hall.  There was general pandemonium as the rowers found themselves trying to row mud, and a stentorian bellow shook the air as the huge Erik the Red, holding onto the mast, recognised his father's holding and voiced his astonishment at finding himself suddenly there, on the land, ship and all.


	4. Chapter 3 Set to Rights

**Chapter Three: Set to Rights**

A cock crowed some distance off, and then another, and another.  A lark's joyous morning song celebrated the arrival of the sun's first rays over the horizon, and Helgarda woke to these familiar sounds. 

She had evidently slept well; the last thing she remembered was lying down on the soft bed and watching unbelievingly as it lengthened and widened magically to accommodate her height and the width of her reach.  A long, warm nightgown waited for her on the bed; she had put it on, touched that someone had thought of her comfort.  She drew the fluffy down comforter up to her shoulders as sleep claimed her.

She sat up.  There was noise outside; someone was driving a wagon full of jars, or something that rattled and clinked. _ "Oi!  Milkman!"_  someone shouted below.  She smiled; someone was bringing milk to the castle.  She looked around at the pretty room, with its wall hangings and draperies, large fireplace, clothespress, and what she believed to be a mirror, although it wasn't bronze like her mirror at home.

"Good morning, dear!" A cheerful female voice greeted her.  Helgarda sprang out of the bed and walked all around the room, looking for the owner of the voice.  As she passed the mirror, the voice said, "Right here, dear."   She looked into the mirror; there inside it was a wraith of a face, a round, kindly face wearing a peculiar cap on its head.

"Are you talking to me?" asked Helgarda, puzzled.  

"Of course!  I'm your mirror, dear; of course I talk to you!  I'm so glad you've slept well; you were exhausted last night, so I kept my peace.  Now that you're arisen, dear, it's time to dress and go down to breakfast.  You'll _love_ the breakfast."

"Everyone keeps praising the food, and if breakfast is anything like last night's feast, they're right."   Helgarda usually woke up hungry, and so she was.

Helgarda looked around for the clothes she had worn the day before.  They were gone; perhaps the house-elves were washing them?  She had never had a selection of clothing in her life; only one set of everything, and a good gown for special occasions.  As something wore out, it was replaced.  She looked in the clothespress and found a skirt, a shift, a tunic and undergarments that looked large enough to fit her.  She turned to put them on her bed – and there was little Olaf, the elf (she must remember to call him a House Elf), just finishing smoothing the coverlet and plumping up the pillows.  He bowed. 

"Good morning, Princess, Olaf is glad you rested well," he said.  Helgarda knelt down in front of the little creature.  "Olaf, is that what you are supposed to be wearing?" she asked him, indicating his garment.

"Olaf is happy to wear pillowslip," he said.  "Is big argument about what House Elves is supposed to be wearing.  Olaf not care, Olaf is here to help, Princess.

"Thank you, Olaf," she said, shooing him towards the door.  "I like to dress by myself."

"Princess, you hollers if you needs Olaf, for anything," said the House Elf.  With a snap of his fingers, he was gone.

*****

Helgarda put on her new clothes, which fitted as if her mother, Walfryda, had made them for her.

"That's lovely, dear," said the mirror.  "There's a leather girdle for you, on your bed." 

Helgarda turned around: there was indeed a leather girdle on her bed, and it had not been there a moment ago.  She picked it up and turned it around in her hands.

"Mirror, this is my girdle that I had not yet worn – my brother brought it for me from Iberia."

"Well, dear, your brother would be pleased if you wore it."

Helgarda put on the girdle and strapped her eating dagger to it.  She was pleased to see that a small leather reticule, just the size to hold a kerchief, hung from the girdle.

As she turned, a hand pulled her skirt.  She looked down.

"Princess, is you ready to go to breakfast?  Olaf take you down to Great Hall," the little creature said.

_These staircases are very ill behaved,_ thought Helgarda.  _I suppose there's a reason why the Headmaster allows them to be so unruly.  _She followed Olaf as he led her towards the Great Hall.   As they came round a corner, her sharp ears heard whispering.  A sense of foreboding pricked the inside of her head.  She stopped, and put a hand on Olaf's bony shoulder, her finger to her lips.  Olaf scurried behind her and hid his face in her skirts.

Soundlessly, she moved forward and then flattened herself against a pillar.  She heard all too clearly: three boys were plotting something more than mischievous.  "Don't be so stupid, Crabbe," said one officious voice.  "Just do as you're told, you idiot; you bump into him, and Goyle, you substitute the phials, and then stand back before his cauldron explodes."

"But, Draco," one of the voices, the petulant one, said, "He's really fast on his feet; he'll grab me and I'll –"

"You'll do as you're told!"  Draco was the ringleader; from his tone, it was clear that he was used to command.  As she listened, a plot unfolded; a nasty plot to get Harry (the Harry she had met, with Hermione and Ron?) into serious trouble with one of his Professors, and possibly do him physical harm. She took a quick glance round the corner, then drew back again:  it was the nasty-faced blond boy and his two dullard companions.

Helgarda had heard enough.  Smoothly, she rounded the corner, reached out one long arm, grabbed the collar of the blond-headed boy, and lifted him off his feet.   His eyes widened, he blanched and his lip began to quiver.  "I didn't do anything!" he whined.

"You've not done anything _yet,_" roared Helgarda.  "Nor will you, little brat!  Plotting and planning another's misfortune, I'll not have it!  Neither will your Headmaster!"  The other two shrank against the wall, trembling.  Holding Draco at arm's length, with his feet three feet above the floor, she marched him downstairs into the dining hall and approached the Masters' Table.  Chatter ceased immediately as the children watched their fellow student being transported in the most embarrassing manner – in front of the entire school!

"Headmaster Dumbledore, I caught this child plotting another's misfortune," she said.  "The other two are probably still upstairs in the corridor, but this is the one who gives orders, and he should be instructed in the foolishness of his ways."

Albus Dumbledore's eyes twinkled.  This was a pretty sight, indeed:  the beautiful half-giantess had the little Malfoy prat by the collar.  She held him easily, suspended in mid air.  He was white, shaking, and as Dumbledore watched, he began to snivel.  "I didn't do anything!  Wait till my father hears about this, you'll be sorry, you'll _all_ be sorry!"   He wiped his nose with his sleeve, and Helgarda gave him a good shake.

"Uncouth child, to wipe your nose on your garments!" she scolded.  "Where's your kerchief?"  She gave him another shake; one more and he'd be appropriately shamed in front of his fellows.  She shook him one more time, and the hapless plotter pissed down his leg with fright.

"Now," said Helgarda, setting him down, "you shall clean up this mess you made, and then you shall apologise in front of all the children and your Masters, for the plotting you attempted against one of your fellow students."  She looked at Dumbledore; he put a finger alongside his nose and nodded sagely.

"You heard the lady, Draco," he said.  "It's fitting punishment for conspiracy, and let that be a lesson to you."  A House Elf ran up to Draco with a pail and a mop, then snapped his fingers and disappeared.  There was general muttering, and then tittering, then chuckling and finally outright laughter as the nasty boy began his discipline.

Helgarda dusted off her hands and walked to her seat at the Masters' Table.  Professor McGonagall, to her right, patted her hand.  "Good morning, Helgarda," she said.  "I'm pleased that you set the Malfoy child to rights.  Deserves a good caning, actually, but I think your ways are quite effective."

"Thank you," said Helgarda.  "We don't strike our children, but we are very strict with them.  It may mean their lives if they don't know how to follow orders, cooperate with their fellows, show courtesy to their elders and kindness to those who are younger or weaker." 

Hagrid sat down in his chair, his eyes twinkling.  "Good morning, Miss Helgarda," he rumbled.  "I was watchin' from the door when yer came in carryin' that nasty little git like he was a piece o'rotten fish." He winked at Helgarda, chuckling.  "Myself, I would've tossed him in the lake and let the giant squid play wi'him." 

Professor Hooch, sitting next to McGonagall, leaned forward.  "If he wasn't worth his weight in galleons on the Quidditch pitch,**_ I_**would've given him a toothbrush, a pail of Javel water and made him clean the toilets on the classroom floors--"

"Pfah!" Little Professor Flitwick interrupted her.  "He's got to be taught a lesson; he's had one coming for three years!  Now,**_ I_** would'v_e_ sent him over to you, Hagrid, to muck out the Hippogriff stalls!"

"No, please!" cried Helgarda.  "He's only a little boy.  His parents should be firm with him.  He's probably spoiled."

"Indeed," said Professor McGonagall.  "Spoiled rotten by his parents, and favoured by his Head of House.  No wonder he's so obnoxious."

Helgarda looked over the table.  The boy had finished cleaning up the floor, and a House Elf took back the bucket and mop.  The child's narrow little face was a study in misery.  She looked carefully at him; there was sorrow in his blue-grey eyes, fear as well.  He had courage, though; he turned to the long tables and looked directly at Harry.  "I apologise for plotting to explode your cauldron in Potions class," he said.  Then he turned away, biting his lip and wringing his hands.  He looked over at Helgarda, and then at Professor Dumbledore.

"You may go, Mister Malfoy," said the Headmaster, and the boy slunk out, head down.

The Headmaster carefully placed a boiled egg in an elaborate eggcup, pointed his wand at it, and neatly caught the shell-top as it flew off.  He beamed.  "Beheaded my egg, I did!" he said.

Helgarda watched in fascination as her bowl filled with steaming porridge.  She noticed that everyone's plate seemed to fill by itself; she had been thinking about porridge, had she not?__

"Headmaster," she said hesitantly, "I've seen that one only has to wish for something in this place, and straightaway it's there.  Does that happen with anything, and for everyone?"

Dumbledore adjusted his cap.  "At a certain level, that is true, my dear," he said.  "It's much simpler to be able to have what you need, in a basic sense, without any fuss or effort.  It saves a great deal of time, as well."

"Yes," added Professor McGonagall.  "The castle knows what you need; it is one of its more obvious magical properties." 

"Well," said Helgarda, and she leaned forward towards the Headmaster, "Does the castle know how much I need to go home?"  She felt Hagrid's arm around her shoulder and his hand over hers, and instinctively she leaned into his comforting touch.  

"Helgarda, your disappearance from your father's holding was not an accident," said Dumbledore.  "You were deliberately taken away.  What has me puzzled is how you came _here_; I don't think this was your destination.  Come to my office at mid-morning, and I'll tell you what I've found so far.  I may have some further information then, as well."

Helgarda trembled.  "Thank you, Headmaster," she whispered. "I have been longing for some news."  Regaining her dignity, she sat up straight and patted Hagrid's hand.  "Thanks to you, good friend," she said.

"I'll do all I can to help," promised Hagrid.  His bright black eyes glittered with tears.  "I have to tell yer, Miss Helgarda, I'll fill the lake to overflowin' with tears if ye go away, but I know ye must." 

"You are more than a good friend," said Helgarda.  She leaned against his shoulder.  'Would that I could take you with me!"

Headmaster Dumbledore pushed his spectacles up on his nose and traded a significant glance with McGonagall.  This was not going to be easy, even at best.


	5. Chapter Four: On White Wings

Chapter Four:  On White Wings 

Helgarda swivelled around in her chair, fascinated.  Headmaster Dumbledore's office was a most intriguing place:  towering shelves full of books, some looking very, very old; rolls of parchment, portraits of former Headmasters and Headmistresses, who smiled, waved, winked or grimaced at her as she regarded them; balls fixed in strange bronze fittings that allowed them to revolve when touched, showing incomprehensible pictures; and many objects too odd to describe. 

Near the Headmaster's huge desk, a brilliantly coloured bird sat on a perch, watching her with a bright beady eye. Professor McGonagall sat next to her, and noticed her gaze on the bird.  "That's Fawkes," she said.  "He's a phoenix."

"I've never seen one," said Helgarda.  "Is he a magical bird?"  

"He certainly is," said Headmaster Dumbledore, settling himself in the thronelike chair in back of his desk.  "He's immortal, burns himself down to his ashes now and then, and then arises whole and new from the ashes.  His tears can cure terrible wounds."

Helgarda looked down at her hands, folded in her lap.  "I hardly know what to tell you," she said.  "I only know that one moment I was fighting at my father's side, battling in the rain and the wind and the mud to vanquish the barbarians who want my father's holding, and the next moment I was in the forest near the castle."  

"What's the very last thing you remember before you realised you were in the forest?"  asked the Headmaster. 

"There were three barbarian warriors trying to surround me," recalled Helgarda.  I watched to see which one I would dispatch first, when someone else pulled my hair from behind me, and I saw a sword coming down towards my neck.  I screamed for my father, and in the middle of that scream, I was here."

"Think carefully," urged Dumbledore. "In that moment, as the sword descended, did you hear or see anything else?"  

Helgarda went over the events in her mind; yes, there _had _been something: something about the wind, although it had been blowing gusts of rain all day, something _different…_

She shook her head as thought to clear it.  "Yes, there was something, something in the wind…I wish I could remember…" Helgarda put her hands over her eyes.  "It – it _hurts my head_ to think about it…" Tears trembled in her eyes.

Professor McGonagall put a comforting hand over hers.  "Everything we know – everything we see, or hear, or feel, is somewhere in our heads; we keep everything tucked away.  Sometimes it's difficult to pull out a particular experience, especially when it's involved with something frightening."

"What shall I do?  If the answer is in my head, I want to pull it out!" cried Helgarda, pulling distractedly at her braid.

Professor Dumbledore reached into an oddly shaped dish on his desk and took out what seemed to be a yellow pebble.  He popped it into his mouth.  "Have a lemon drop," he said, holding out the dish to Helgarda.  

"Thank you," she said, not wishing to appear ungrateful.  She took a yellow pebble and put it into her mouth, where it melted into a sweet, slightly sharp liquid with an unfamiliar flavour.  "Oh!" she exclaimed.  "It's - very nice."  Somehow, she felt calmer.

"I've given your situation a great deal of thought," said the Headmaster, "and done some research.  I don't want to alarm you, Helgarda, but you seem like a bright young woman, and I believe you can deal with the truth."

"Please," Helgarda said, leaning forward, "Ungarn raised me to always seek the truth, no matter how painful or unpleasant.  He also raised me to be brave."  She sat erect, her head held high.  "You honour me by telling me the truth."

"Very well," said Dumbledore.  "I have learned a great deal about your homeland, and about the state of the world _in those days_."  He looked at her out of clear blue eyes.

"_In those days?" _gasped Helgarda.  "What are _these days,_ then? How far- how _long_ have I come?"

"About eleven hundred years," Dumbledore replied.  "You have been snatched out of your own time and place and brought into ours, eleven hundred years and many miles from your Nordland."

Helgarda sat, stunned.  Then she drew herself up, took a large breath. Her brows met, her fists clenched.  "Who would do such a thing!" she demanded.  "Who would wrest me from my father's side yet not kill me – and now that I am no longer there, what are they doing to my father?"  She sprang out of her chair and began to pace.  Anger coloured her cheeks.

"When someone takes such extreme measures as removing you in time and in space from your father's holding, they must have done it deliberately.  It was no accident that you are not there, and I also believe it's no accident that you are _here._  It's possible that whoever did it is trying to jeopardize Ungarn's tenuous hold on his kingdom; the barbarians are probably regrouping and plan to strike again soon.  With your brother out at sea and you gone – _somewhere,_ your father's forces are weakened."  

"But why Helgarda?  Why not seize Ungarn himself?" asked Professor McGonagall.

"I've been pursuing that idea," said the Headmaster, "and came up with the unsettling thought that there's something specifically about Helgarda that someone wants out of the way – in her time."

"How can we know?" asked Helgarda.  "If someone just wanted me gone, why not simply kill me?"

"There are clues we can't see yet," answered the Headmaster.  "However, we can pursue them – with your agreement, Helgarda, because you're in the midst of things.  First, we can help you to take a closer look at the _something_ you noticed in the moment between being there and being here.  It may seem a little strange to you, but I assure you, it's perfectly safe."

Professor McGonagall's eyes narrowed.  "Yes, Albus – we'll be very careful indeed.  I think we'll need to talk to Madam Pomfrey, and then to Professor Snape."  She turned to Helgarda:  "We of the wizarding world have found ways to use natural substances to cure diseases, ease pain, and in some remarkable instances, enhance memory."

"That's amazing!" cried Helgarda.  "Give it to me, I'll take it, whatever it is!"

"Not so fast," cautioned Dumbledore.  "We call it 'Veritaserum,' and in your case, it will have to be compounded specifically for you.  You're a giant, my dear!" 

"Oh, I know why everyone says that," said Helgarda. "I'm half again as large as most people! Have you never given this, what did you call it, Veritaserum, to anyone my size before?"

Dumbledore and McGonagall looked at each other.  "It's not quite that simple, Helgarda," said Professor McGonagall.  "You've become friends with Hagrid, I noticed, and chances are he told you that he's a half-giant.  In his case, it's true, but not in the same way as with you.  Hagrid's mother was a full giant; his father was an ordinary-sized wizard.  Unfortunately, Hagrid's mother left him and his father when he was quite young, and he doesn't like to talk about it."

 "I understand," said Helgarda soberly.  "That's very sad, and I don't blame him for not talking about it.  Then, though, he's half giant and half what you call ordinary-size, like you.  Then," she said slowly, "I'm a full giant, because both of my parents were the same size."

"Exactly," said Dumbledore.  "If I'm not mistaken, everyone in Nordland was much the same size."

"Yes," said Helgarda.  "Now and then there was someone a little smaller or a little taller, but we are much the same."

"It's interesting, I must say," interjected Professor McGonagall, "that today, people in what used to be called Nordland are no longer giants.  Something must have happened; they're smaller.   That may or may not be related to the problem at hand.  What _is_ at stake here is how Helgarda got here, and why."

Professor Dumbledore stood up and came round to Helgarda, resting a grandfatherly hand on her shoulder.  "My dear child, we will do everything possible to return you home, and also to solve this strange mystery.  But there are some things that magic doesn't help us with, and for that we seek the help of others with other talents.  We are fortunate to have a remarkable Runes Mistress at Hogwarts, and I am certain that she will be most agreeable to lending her assistance."

"Runes!  Of course, everyone knows runes!" exclaimed Helgarda.  "My father's mage, Skjald, reads the runes for us.  However, " she sighed, "sometimes he doesn't make any sense, at least not to me."

"Oh, I think you'll find Dame Angharad much easier to understand," said Dumbledore. "She's a Druid as well, and she can _farsee."_

Helgarda shivered.  Farseeing!  No-one in Nordland had been able to see the future since the egg of time! Magic hadn't been seen much in Nordland for generations, but things might have begun to change. If so, the plotters might try to strike in a different way to offset this turn of events. 

"Let's pay a call on Madam Pomfrey," said Professor McGonagall.  "She'll give us an idea of how Veritaserum should be compounded for you.  Then we'll visit Professor Snape."  Her eyes twinkled.  "I think you'll find him quite interesting."

Helgarda smiled.  "Hermione has told me about Professor Snape," she said.  "She says he looks like an overgrown bat, he is greasy and ugly and nasty, but he has a good heart. If he were in my land, my father would probably drag him into the sweat-bath, telling him it would do him good."

Minerva McGonagall laughed until she had to lean against the wall for a minute.  They walked up the moving staircases, which behaved quite nicely for them.  As they neared the hospital wing, they met Harry and Ron, who courteously bid them good day.  Harry had a beautiful white Arctic owl on his shoulder.

"What have you there?" asked Helgarda.  "She's lovely; is she a pet?"

"No, she's a messenger," answered Harry.  "We use owls to carry messages back and forth; they're very dependable.  This is my owl.  Her name is Hedwig, and she's quite tame."  The bird regarded Helgarda solemnly, and then lifted one leg.  "She wants to go to you," said Harry.  

Helgarda held out her arm, and the bird hopped on to it, looking at her with the owl's typical round-eyed stare.  "Would that she could take a message to my father!" she said. 

"She almost never lets anyone touch her but me," Harry said, "but she must want to help you.I don't know if Hedwig can find her way to Nordland, but she'll give it a try; she's very courageous.  Here's a piece of parchment," he said, and pulled a small sheet out of a book he carried.  Ron put his quill and inkwell on a nearby small table, and Helgarda thought a moment, wrote a few runes, blew on the parchment to dry it.

Harry rolled up the parchment and tied it to Hedwig's leg with a piece of string.  

"Please, Hedwig, go to Ungarn and give him my message; let him know that I live and that I'm trying to return home," said Helgarda.  Hedwig cocked her head, then pulled one of Helgarda's hairs out, tucked it in her breast, flapped her wings and circled the room once, then flew out of the nearest window.


	6. Chapter 5 Halloween Ball

**Chapter Five:  The Halloween Ball**

Helgarda looked at herself in the mirror.  She didn't feel like celebrating; she had spent much of the past hour weeping in her room.  Headmaster Dumbledore, that kindest of men, had tried to spare her further pain, but he had told her the truth: someone had gotten her out of the way deliberately.  It was his opinion that someone, perhaps the barbarians, wished to jeopardize Ungarn's tenuous hold on his kingdom.  With his powerful daughter out of the way, they would plan to attack again as soon as possible.  The Headmaster felt that there was magic afoot in Nordland; magic that had not been wielded in centuries, but things were evidently changing.

"So," he told Helgarda, " we know that magic can be used for good or for evil.  I would not have thought that the barbarians were skilful enough to remove you from your world and bring you here – to the modern-day Wizarding World, with its immense power. We must find out who would benefit from your absence." 

On the morrow, she would meet Professor Snape, who would give her the Veritaserum to drink, in the hope that it would sharpen her recollection of the moments before she was torn away from her father's side.  Then, she would meet the Runes Mistress, Dame Angharad, and between them all, the Headmaster, Professor McGonagall, the Druid and the potion, there would be an answer to her problem.  So she hoped.  _Odin,_ she thought, _if this is your doing I want to know why.  What have I done?  What am I supposed to do, or not do?  _She felt tears approaching again.  That would never do; these good and generous people were doing everything they could to help her. 

She turned around and regarded herself from all possible angles. It was her second full day at Hogwarts, and she was invited to attend the great celebration of what some call Samhain and others call Halloween.  It would be an insult to her hosts not to attend, no matter how she felt.  "What do you think?" she asked the mirror.

"If you want to know the truth, dear, I'd take off that knitted tunic.  It doesn't suit with the dress; it spoils the line."

Helgarda started to pull off the heavy woollen tunic, and then stopped.  "You don't think I'll look too immodest without it?"

"Pshaw!  You're a pretty young girl; why not let others see how pretty you are?  There, now, pull that bodice down smoothly."  Helgarda did as the mirror told her, and found herself blushing.  "I'm practically overflowing this bodice!" she said.

"No, you're not!  It's quite acceptable to show a bit of bosom, and since you're tall, no-one will try to look _down_ your front to see what they shouldn't, so it's perfectly all right!"

Helgarda had to admit that the mirror was right.  She looked regal in the long dark blue gown with its low-scooped bodice and full queen's sleeves.  It needed something, though…there was a little tap on her door.  "Enter," she said.

Olaf came bustling in with an armload of towels for the bathroom.  Right behind him was another House Elf, somewhat more feminine in appearance.  Olaf indicated his companion:  "This is Winky, Princess.  Winky is come to help you get ready for the ball."

Little Winky walked all around Helgarda.  "Princess," she said in her squeaky little voice, "I is thinking you need _something_ with that gown; I is bringing it."  She snapped her fingers and disappeared, and a second or two later, a loud POP! announced her arrival.  She carried a wooden box over her head, holding it high although it did look rather heavy. Putting the box down on Helgarda's bed, she opened it and removed a long sash, or girdle, of a beautiful dark blue tapestry fabric with gold embroidery.  She tied the sash around Helgarda's hips, arranging the long ends smoothly one over the other in front.  A flash of green light from her gnarled fingers, and a gold brooch fastened the girdle in the front.  Winky stepped back to admire her work:  "Better!  Much, much better! You is tying your eating dagger onto the girdle, Princess," said she.  Then she held the opened wooden box up to Helgarda.

"Are these for me?"  Helgarda lifted a beautiful gold bracelet from the box.  She put it on her left wrist; it fitted smoothly as if it had been made for her measure.  Then, she selected an interesting worked gold cloak clasp.  The design reminded her of the mythical bushy-maned beasts her mother's kinsman had caused to be painted on the walls of his Hall, or the catlike creature on the red and gold banner above Hermione's table in the Great Hall.

Winky fastened the clasp to Helgarda's blue cloak, climbed up on the bed and put the cloak around her shoulders.  "You sits down now, Princess, and Winky does your hair," the little elf said.

Helgarda smiled.  Winky reminded her of her mother's old servant, Braunhilde, who was bossy, officious, outspoken and loving.  She sat down on the small chair next to her bed.  Winky did some things to her hair; Helgarda couldn't really tell _what_ she did, but it only took a few minutes.  "Look, please, Princess," Winky said, taking her sleeve in her small hand and tugging her towards the mirror.  Helgarda gaped at her reflection.  Her hair had been arranged into a stately braided crown, with long, loosely curled strands lying on her shoulders and flowing down her back.  Her gold coronet circled her brow, as always, and the effect was at once regal and endearing.  

"You is beautiful, Princess," said Olaf.  "Yes, beautiful, beautiful," echoed Winky.  The little she-elf made a mystical pass with her hands, and iridescent mist bloomed in the air and then dusted Helgarda's hair, shoulders and bosom.  "Just a little sparklies, Princess," said Winky.

Helgarda took her leave:  "Thank you, thank you, Olaf and Winky, and you also, Mirror.  I feel like a queen of olden times."  She closed the door behind her, and paced along the corridor on her way to the moving staircases. She did indeed feel better.

"Miss Helgarda!"  She stopped, and saw Hermione running towards her.  "Oh, you look _fabulous!"_ gasped Hermione.  "You look like a fairy queen!" She made a circling motion with her hand, and Helgarda revolved in front of her.

"Thanks, Hermione, my mirror and two House Elves did it all; I wouldn't have known how to begin.  I'm unused to such elaborate clothing; we are plain people."

Hermione dimpled.  "Wait till Hagrid sees you!  He'll positively foam at the mouth!"  

"Oh, dear," said Helgarda.  "Do we really want him to do that?"

:"I meant, he'll be struck speechless and fall madly in love with you, if he isn't already," stated Hermione.  "Actually, I think _all_ the men will go ga-ga over you!"

Helgarda frowned.  "What is that, 'ga-ga?"  Does it mean they'll go berserk?"

"Well, most of them anyway.  If they don't they're all too old and worn out."  

Harry and Ron met Helgarda and Hermione in the corridor.  "We've got to give Hagrid his medicine," whispered Ron.  "I can sneak it to him before everyone sits down to dinner."  Hermione and Harry nodded.

Harry blushed as he looked at Helgarda.  "Wow," he said simply.  "Just – wow." 

"Yeah," echoed Ron.  "Wow."  He didn't want his friend to feel left out: "You, too, Hermione, you look super."  

Hermione was wearing the costume of a Salem Witch, including a white apron, white cap and a big scarlet A on the bib of the apron.  

Harry and Ron wore their interpretations of humorous costumes:  Harry was upholstered in round cloth circles of many colours, as Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans, and Ron was draped in grey rags, with a blood-red kerchief tied around his neck. Nearly Headless Nick  himself could not have done better. Together, the four walked to the Great Hall.


	7. Chapter 6 The Queen of Love and Beauty

Chapter Six:  The Queen of Love and Beauty

_Put on your hip boots, dear readers. Here it comes._

The tall man walked gracefully down the three steps into the Great Hall and looked around.  Everything was festive for the Halloween Ball:  pumpkins carved into amusing faces, with candles inside them, everywhere; festoons of little white ghosts, flapping and whispering, "Boo!" whenever anyone looked at them; the house bats performing synchronised flying manoeuvres overhead; great urns of yellow and orange chrysanthemums and flaming autumn leaves, and, of course, Hogwarts' famous floating candles, orange in honour of Samhain.

He looked up: the stars of Scorpio shone in the enchanted ceiling.  Hogwarts' house ghosts reigned over the ceiling on Halloween; he could see them flying back and forth, some on spectral brooms, and one (the Bloody Baron, he supposed), driving a ghostly motorcar of ancient vintage, the Grey Lady in the passenger seat.  It had been given him some years ago during a Halloween prank, and he refused to part with it.  

The tables were decorated with jack o'lantern centrepieces, and laden with footed trays of nuts, candy, fruits and sugar skulls, bowls of shining red apples and baskets of cakes and pitchers of cider.  Against one wall, an orchestra tuned up.  The feast would appear on the tables as soon as the Headmaster spoke the blessing.  _Yes_, he thought, _Dumbledore's outdone himself this time_.

He handed a House Elf his cloak and cane, brushed an invisible speck from his impeccable black jacket front, removed his gloves, shrank them into almost nothing and put them into a pocket.  He tossed his head, and his long hair flowed down his back almost to his waist.  He smirked; _I still have it; I'll always have it.  Look at them _staring_ at me!"_

In truth, people always stared at him. Why not?  Was he not beautiful?  He swaggered over to the Masters' Table and paid his respects to old Dumbledore, then circulated amongst the crowd, kissing ladies' hands and greeting colleagues and acquaintances.   His son sat under the Slytherin banner, looking uncharacteristically subdued.  Draco looked up and saw his father approaching, and an odd look crossed his face.  Not the usual flash of fear, not this time.  The corner of the boy's lip curled and he _sneered._

Lucius Malfoy loomed over his seated son.  "Well, my son, is that how you greet your father?"

Draco rose to his feet and _bowed_, then looked at his sire with a strangely expressionless face.  "Welcome, sir," he said.  Cool, polite and somehow menacing.  _What?  This little shite, his own child, _menacing?"  Lucius returned the bow and waved his hand at his son.  "Enjoy the ball, son."  Draco sat down again.

The music began; some of the Masters chose partners and waltzed out onto the dancing-floor that had been created when the long student's tables had been placed crosswise, with a large space between them.  Lucius nodded to Minerva McGonagall, dressed in what he supposed was her Halloween best (yet another hideous pointed hat, although no vulture on its peak; another dreadful, tatty green gown, doubtless a family heirloom worn by her great-great-grandmother and generations of other tasteless McGonagall witches since).  He shook hands with Flitwick, and started across the floor to talk to Goyle Senior, who did not look over-enthused to see him.  He was almost at the man's side when there was a hubbub at the stairs, and Lucius turned to look.

Oh, it was only that Mudblood female, Granger, with Potter and Weasley.  Three Gryffindors.  His lip twisted in disgust.  Bad enough she had been allowed into the school at all; worse that she seemed to be an exemplary student; and worst, she had caused _his son_ to owl home, in his most snivelling of tones, that she had insulted him in public.  

He goggled.  He _stared._

If Colin Creevey had snapped a photo portrait of him at that moment and shown it to him, he would have ripped it to shreds with his bare hands, caused the camera to explode and then brained the amateur photographer with his silver-headed cane.

Still, it would have been lovely to have had a permanent record of that most sophisticated and urbane of aristocrats with his mouth hanging open, practically drooling on the floor.  And _that _was in addition to the well-covered up but painfully evident male reaction to a half-giant-sized Queen of Love and Beauty entering the room.

He was big, but she was half again as tall as he.  O gods, that fabulous hair, the colour of ripe corn, glossy as new corn silk! That red gold coronet: a _princess_! Those beautiful sky-blue eyes with their thick brown lashes and the winged blonde brows; that porcelain complexion!  _That incredible_ _peaches and cream bosom, swelling delectably above the blue velvet scoop of her bodice…_ He _had_ to have her.  Oh, to bury his face in those soft hills!  To revel in the luxurious fullness of that big, womanly body!

He strode to the beautiful half-giantess' side and took her hand as he knelt at her feet in a full court bow, his head bent, his platinum blond hair spilling over his shoulders.   He kissed her hand, and then looked up at her, his silver-blue eyes shining.

"Princess, I am your slave," he purred.  "Do with me what you will."

***

Hermione, Harry and Ron had all they could do to control themselves until they could get out of earshot by running into the Tea Parlour, just off the Great Hall.  Ron bent almost double, holding his hands over his mouth; Harry's face was purple as he stifled snorts of laughter, and Hermione had already descended into gales of hysteria, tears running down her face. "Oh, gods!" Ron gasped, wiping his eyes with his handkerchief.  "What an ass!"  Hermione was beyond speech; she was hiccupping helplessly. "Come on," said Harry.  "We've got to get 'Mione some punch before she hiccups herself up to the ceiling."  The boys seized Hermione's hands and towed her back into the Great Hall, in the direction of the punch table.

They saw Hagrid across the room, talking to some of the Ministers.  As they watched, he bid them goodbye and started across the room in their direction.  Then, he stopped in his tracks, and his face took on the appearance of a thunderstorm.

"What's the matter with him?" whispered Harry.  Hermione followed Hagrid's gaze: Helgarda was talking to Lucius Malfoy, who was offering her his arm and gesturing to the gardens.  As they watched, the couple walked out of the glass doors and could be seen strolling through the rose bushes.

The three Gryffindors hastened over to Hagrid, who was muttering into his beard and shifting from one foot to the other.  "Hagrid, what is it?" asked Harry.

 He glared down at the boy.  "Did yer see him?  Did yer see that disgustin' fop, down on his knee, bowin' an' scrapin' and flappin' 'is eyelashes at her?"

He growled ominously.  "If he lays a finger of 'is frickin' hand on her…"

Hermione pounced on his arm, and between herself and the two boys, they dragged him over to a table on which stood punch bowls filled with red cranberry punch, pitchers of cider and butterbeer and tiered serving plates of savouries.

"Hagrid, don't worry, if Malfoy steps out of line, she'll just knock him on his bum," snickered Ron, handing Hermione a cup of cranberry punch.  

"Yes, you saw how  - _Hic!  _she handled his little prat, didn't you?  Now, just trust her," Hermione said soothingly.  She took several large swallows of the tart-sweet punch. "She's going to be your companion for dinner, isn't she?"

Hagrid nodded.  He looked as if he would burst into tears.  "She's so wonderful," he said softly.  "Once in yer life, an angel comes along; she's my angel."  A big tear rolled down his cheek and trickled into his beard.

"Now, Hagrid," Harry said, patting the half-giant on the back, "don't be sad.  If she doesn't' come back in a few minutes, you can always go out there and toss Malfoy to the giant squid."

Hagrid brightened considerably.  "Or into the Whompin' Willow!"

Hermione pulled Ron's sleeve.  "Ron—"

"Oh, yes, Hagrid, we didn't want to forget.  You left your medicine somewhere; we wanted to bring it back to you," and he handed Hagrid the phial of blue potion liquid.  Absently, Hagrid tucked it into the pouch he always had about him, threaded into a loop of his belt.

***

"I'm flattered, sir, but I must tell you that it just won't work."  Helgarda sat down on a bench and looked at the handsome man next to her.  She had just spent a quarter of an hour walking in the gardens with Lucius Malfoy, listening to him prattle on about his wealth, his business, his high position with the Ministry of Magic, whatever _that _was, and how smitten he was with her. 

After swearing his fealty to her, vowing to defend her in battle, drape her with gold and jewels and fight for her honour, he had the grace to blush as he told her he had fallen deeply in love with her, and wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and make love to her.

"What do you _mean, _girl, it won't work?  It _always _works; that's the way of a man and a maid.  I assure you, my dear, it will be a most pleasurableexperience; you will learn the ways of love from a _master_."

"I'm so sorry to be the first to tell you this," Helgarda said, "but there's a size difference here.  You would be most unhappy with me, and I with you."

"Sweet lady, I _love_ big women!  My dearest Princess, I must say that I am, er, of most _generous _proportionsmyself, and I've had no complaints about being too small – ever. You shall be delighted, I promise, with the evidence of my passion for you."

Helgarda sighed.  "I'll show you why it won't work," she said.  She held out her hand and touched the tip of her forefinger to the tip of her thumb.  She showed him the resulting circle. "Do you see that? Now, give me your hand."

She took his thumb, his thickest finger, and put the circle of her fingers over it.  He looked at her.  "Like _that_?" he breathed. He paled.

"Yes, like that.  That's what we would have to contend with, and it wouldn't be of much satisfaction to either of us."

Lucius knelt up next to her and kissed her gently.  "Mmmm," she said.  "You _are_ a most excellent kisser."

He smirked.  "So I've been told before," he said.  'I shall not press you, darling Princess.  I _respect_ your wishes.  However, I must remind you that I am a Wizard; one of the most powerful in the entire Wizarding World, and there is always an answer to be found, if one cares enough to pursue it.  And," he said, looking into her eyes and then modestly lowering his long blond eyelashes, "I _do_ care enough."   He kissed her hand.  "May I call on you tomorrow evening?  If you have never seen the view of Hogwarts' magnificent lake from the top of the Astronomy Tower, I would be honoured to show it to you."

"That would be lovely!"  The chimes sounded for dinner; Lucius offered Helgarda his arm, and they walked back into the Great Hall.

Hagrid glowered.  He turned to Vector:  "It's about time he brought her in!"  

Vector waved his hands dismissively: "Don't worry about it, Hagrid!  He's only a little pipsqueak to her, and she's just being polite to everyone.  Now, don't you want to escort her to the Masters' Table for dinner?"

Hagrid drew himself up, and approached the half-giantess and Malfoy.  He smiled politely.  "Evenin', yer worship," he said to Lucius.  "I'm to take Miss Helgarda to the guests' seat of honour at the Masters' table.  Have a nice dinner, you."

Lucius bowed stiffly.  "Hagrid," he said.  He went over to the guests' table and found a seat next to Crabbe.  He smiled to himself:  he had one day – _one day—_to solve his, er, _problem_.

Helgarda smiled to herself.  Malfoy was a dreamer, a fool to think that they could be lovers!  Yes, she did indeed know the way of men and maids.  Still, he would have been shamed and unmanned if she had agreed to take him to her bed._ He's very handsome, and quite a good kisser, _she admitted to herself, _but when I finally do decide to lie with a man, I'd want to be _filled! _Well, everyone gets their weird in the end, and so shall he._ She tucked her arm through Hagrid's, giggled when he blushed, and together they went over to the Masters' table.


	8. Chapter 7 Cave Incantatem

**_Chapter Seven: Cave Incantatem_**

Professor Severus Snape opened the door to his classroom and fixed the students therein with a beady eye.  A double class today:  Gryffindors, those self-important blusterers; and Slytherins, the spoiled-rotten, arrogant and snotty scions of his own house.

"Ladies and gentlemen, and I use the terms loosely," he murmured, "open your textbooks to Page seven hundred and thirty-two, and please endeavour to follow along as I review the ingredients and methods for preparation of the Hair Restoring potion.  I shall use small words of few syllables in the _hope_ that you will be able to keep up."

He turned his back on the class and began to write on the chalkboard in his precise, spiky hand.  Behind him, pages turned, and quills scratched on parchment.  He turned back to the students.

Whilst the Gryffindors and Slytherins were compounding their potions, Snape seated himself at his desk.  He looked over at Weasley, whose tongue was clamped firmly between his lips as he struggled to crumble his lacewings into equal pieces.  How ridiculous the prat had looked last night; he had been covered in round pieces of paper of various colours, supposedly in representation of Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans.  Potter had draped himself in grey rags and tied a red kerchief around his neck; he wore a grey top hat as an impersonation of Nearly Headless Nick. Or maybe they had been costumed the other way round; it hardly mattered.

Miss Granger, meanwhile, had dressed herself in a historically inaccurate representation of a Salem Witch.  He thought of going over to her and informing her that Nathaniel Hawthorne's Hester Prynne, the bearer of the scarlet letter, was only a Muggle literary character and lived at a different time in history than the famous Salem witch trials, but it was not worth the effort. It was all he could do to avoid looking and listening to them, giggling and snorting and acting like asses when they were certainly old enough – fourteen years old was not an infant! – to act with some semblance of dignity.

Instead, he sat in his seat at the Masters' Table and watched the parade of students, Masters and guests.  His mouth turned downwards when that Helgarda intruder; a half-giantess, no less, entered the Hall; overflowing bodice and all.  Good job he had given Hagrid the potion, or he would have made a worse spectacle of his already foolish self.

However, he noticed, to his even greater displeasure, that Hagrid was fawning over the lady, gawking at her notable bosom, feeding her bits off his own plate – and she was having the time of her life, giggling at his witticisms, blushing when he took her hand!

Sourly, Snape thought to himself, _I must check the formulation of that potion. It's not working.  _

***

Lucius Malfoy crept quietly upstairs and peered into his wife's bedchamber.  The lady was abed; a House Elf was changing the lavender-water cloth on her forehead, and she blinked sleepily at her husband as he approached the bedside.

Lucius lifted her pale hand and kissed it.  "How are you feeling, dear?" he asked solicitously.  "How's your migraine?"

Narcissa sighed.  "It's been an awful day, _awful_, Lucius, my head's exploding. My neuralgia has been so agonising, I'm sure that it brought on this latest attack of migraine.  I _must_ go to Salzburg and take the cure as soon as I'm well enough to travel.  I think my liver's toxic as well.  How was the Hogwarts Ball?  I just _didn't _have the strength to go, Lucius, crowds make me swoon."

"Rest well, sweeting; you didn't miss anything.  I'll see you for breakfast if you're up to it."  He left the chamber and went into his own suite of rooms.  Migraine was today's illness; yesterday it had been neuralgia; it sounded as if liver was on the menu of maladies, as it were, for tomorrow.  Yet another day, and another buffet of endlessly painful symptoms. Narcissa was a professional hypochondriac.  Ah, well, it gave her something to do…

Lucius took off his clothes and had a bath. He kicked his valet House Elves out of his bedchamber, and wrapped himself in a long green dressing gown.  He entered his study, selected a cigar and clamped it between his teeth, then poured himself a snifter of his finest cognac and carried it over to his desk. It was an enormous mahogany relic used and abused by generations of Malfoys for everything from formal dinners to vivisection experiments to creative shagging. Then, he perused his bookshelves, finally selecting two ancient tomes.  He took the books to the desk, sat down in his wide, high-backed leather chair, and began to read whilst enjoying his cigar.

An hour later, he was of the opinion that he _already_ knew everything he needed to know, and required no further study of books.  It was simple.  There she was, that super-sized vision of feminine pulchritude; and here _he_ was, a well-formed, healthy but normal-sized Wizard.  The problem lay between his legs: he was well enough endowed, but still, not _giant_ sized.

Lucius unscrewed his wand from his cane and placed it on his desk.  He opened his dressing gown, looked down and regarded the family jewels.  _Never got any complaints,_ he reflected.  Gasps of awe aplenty, screams of pain every now and then and the expected orgasmic moans – but then, he had not attempted to shag a _giant_ before.

_Best think this through first, _he said to himself. Thinking, he ran a long finger over his penis, lingering on the sensitive spot on the underside.  Obligingly, the shaft hardened and lengthened, and he clasped it in his hand.  "_I've got you a job for you, little friend," _he chuckled, stroking the fine, thin skin and moving it up and down over the length of the erection.

_Now,_ he thought, _we're ready.  "Engorgio!"  _he pronounced.  He felt an odd prickling, and looked down.  _O gods…_his penis had obediently swelled…sideways.  It was now about eight inches in _diameter_ and four inches long.  The sides of it pressed against his thighs, and his balls ached in protest, squashed down by the width of the enchanted organ.

_"Finite incantatem!" _ cried Lucius, and with the feeling of air being let out of a balloon and the sound of a protracted and explosive fart, his penis deflated to its normal size.  His heart was pounding.  _I didn't have the proper mental picture, _Lucius fretted.  He took a long swallow of cognac.

He returned to his books, and some time later, he decided to essay a spell again.  This one, however, was not a simple swelling charm; it depended on imagery and visualisation.  Lucius was sure he knew _exactly_ what he had to produce to please the Princess.  He smirked.  This time, the proportion was correct; the size right, the shape right.  He leaned back in his chair and took his wand in his hand, pointed it at his crotch, pictured the desired result, and said,  "_Concombris magnus."_

_Did I do it wrong? _ At first, he thought he had; nothing had happened.  He looked down at his flaccid member, enfeebled from the swelling spell.  It looked just the same as it had before:  oh, wait a minute…it seemed much paler than usual (well, the blood was not rushing to its head) – no, not pale, pale _green_, then darker and darker!  The ensorcelled phallus rose, hardening and thickening, in perfect proportion.  Its skin slowly darkened and thickened until it was dark green and shiny, with a few bumps here and there.  Lucius thought he would faint: now he had a _cucumber_ instead of a cock.  At least it was the right size...  He moved it gingerly; _o gods, his balls had become pickled tomatoes…_

Two hours later, Lucius would have welcomed death.  His genitals had been subjected to one spell after another, and had suffered, after the cucumber and pickles episode, incarnations as a squid  (tentacles and all), a Quidditch bat with the lettering, _Slytherin Rules, _along its side, a racing broom (Nimbus 2004, he figured), and a salami.  A nose was bizarre beyond belief, a tongue, no better.

The final effort, on which he had placed all of his flagging hopes, was the _worst.  _He had expected that the Slytherin Snake, sigil of his House and symbol of his power, would rescue him.  Instead, the serpent had reared up from the root of his groin, grown to perhaps four feet in length, faced him, opened its huge mouth, displaying fangs dripping with venom, and _hissed in his face_, spraying his features with the burning poison.  Then, it had gone questing all around his body, finally pushing its flat reptilian nose against his_ anus_, horror of horrors!  He had just managed to _Finite Incantatem _the serpent back to whatever rank crevice it had occupied in his imagination before it could violate him.  

Exhausted, Lucius closed his books, gave his equally exhausted penis, now wrapped in a cold compress, a furious glare, and crawled into his bed, tossing back a phial of Dreamless Sleep potion.  He did not need a haunting of vegetables, sausage, sea creatures, snakes, sporting goods and facial features to make his night hideous; it already was.

_A/N:  "Cave incantatem" means "Beware of the spell."_


	9. Chapter Eight The Sight

_Chapter Eight   The Sight_

Ungarn pounded his fist on the doorpost.  He felt the Berserker rage come upon him as he stood in front of all that was left of his mighty Hall:  some upright beams, the doorpost, the stone hearth.  All else was ashes.  The barbarians had fired everything that could burn; the smoke house, the families' cottages, the shipbuilding sheds, the barns.  He shook his head, and then shook himself like a bear, his heart pounding in his breast. 

A heavy hand lay on his shoulder.  "Father, come away, " rumbled the deep voice of Red Erik.  He put his arm around his father.  Ungarn turned to him and wept in his son's strong arms, crying out piteously, sobbing for his dead wife, his lost daughter and his ruined Hall in the same breath that he cursed the gods and vowed vengeance. 

"Living like a bear in a cave!  All, all that I built for you and your sister, all is gone!"  He raised his tear-stained countenance to the grey-clouded skies and roared:  "Odin!  Old One-Eye, is this how you fight me?  You made me strong; was I too strong for you?  Are you jealous, old thane?  I will beat you; come down here, you coward!" 

"Stop it, Father.  There is much to do.  You waste your time yelling at the gods, whilst they only laugh."  Erik pushed his father ahead of him as they walked to the ship.  The crew were still cutting logs and trimming off branches to make rollers, as they were about a half kilometre from the beach.  They would drive a wedge under the prow and slide the first roller underneath it; then shove the ship forwards onto the next roller, and so on. 

Erik was at a loss; how had his ship ended up in the mud outside the cave where his family hid?  He was mystified; only his son, little Leif, had offered any explanation.  "I picked up the ship in my head, Father.  A storm was coming, and I was afraid that it would wreck you, so I picked it up and brought it here."  Leif was working with the men, trimming logs so that they would roll smoothly.  He looked up, dropped his knife and ran over, throwing his arms around his father. 

"Father!  We're working so hard, and we have so many logs!  Soon we will roll the ship down to the water."   He released Erik and went to his grandfather, taking his hand.  "Grandfather, you're so sad," he said.  He put his arms around the burly warrior chief's waist. 

Ungarn patted Leif's head.  "Yes, child, I'm sad.  I'm mourning many things: your grandmother, your aunt Helgarda…" Tears fell into his beard, and he sobbed.  Leif pulled him down to sit on a rock.  He climbed up into his grandfather's lap and hugged him:  "Please, Grandfather, don't weep.  Aunt Helgarda will come home." 

Ungarn raised his head.  "You know this?"  He looked at Erik.  "He knew that your ship was in the path of a storm; he knew you would be home within a day.  Maybe he knows where she is!"  Erik squatted down at his father's side. 

"Leif, what do you see?  Can you see Helgarda?"  He put his hand on his father's knee.  "If you can bring my ship in from the ocean, boy, you can bring my sister home." 

Leif squirmed.  "I don't know, Father.  I don't know how I did that, it just happened.  Sometimes I – _see_ things.  I don't try to see them; they just come to me."  He leaned against his grandfather's chest and closed his eyes, looking very troubled indeed. 

Leif's eyes flew open.  "Oh!" he cried.  He jumped off Ungarn's lap and began to run towards the forest. 

"Wait, Leif!"  Erik ran after him, motioning to his father to stay behind.  Erik caught up with his son at the foot of a tall spruce tree.  "Why did you run away like that?" 

Leif looked up.  He put his finger over his mouth, cautioning his father to be silent.  Erik looked up into the thick blue-green needles.  An owl was sitting on a branch, a pure white owl.  Erik bent over to whisper to his son:  "Why did you run to this tree?  Is it that owl?" 

Leif nodded.  He held up his arm, and the beautiful white bird floated soundlessly down from its perch.  It sat on his arm and hooted softly, then rose into the air and flew to Ungarn, who had been watching them in puzzlement.  The owl landed on Ungarn's knee, and held out one clawed foot.  A piece of parchment was tied onto it with string. 

_This is magic,_ thought Ungarn.  Leif and his father came puffing over, in time to see Ungarn pull the string off the owl's leg and take the parchment.  He unfolded it, and something fell out into his hand:  a long golden hair.  Ungarn's head spun; he thought he would faint.  "Eric!" he grated.  "Is this – is this hair, is it hers?"   Leif pushed his father aside impatiently. 

"Let me see it!"  He took the hair in his hand.  His face became still, still, and he looked older, as if he had suddenly become a man.  He closed his eyes.  His voice, when it came, was soft, deep, the voice that would be his in the years to come:  "Helgarda, come home.  You are needed here," he said.  Then he collapsed bonelessly onto the ground. 

Ungarn looked at the few runes written on the parchment.  "This is Helgarda's writing.  She lives!  Helgarda lives!"  Ungarn rose to his feet.  "Call Skjald!  Build a bonfire; tell your men to stop cutting logs.  We must rebuild the Hall.  Your sister is coming home." 

***

The old mage watched his master from his hiding-place amongst a pile of boulders. Wholly unexpected, that this owl should arrive carrying a message, and truly unexpected that Helgarda lived.  For four days he had cast the runes, stared into his scrying bowl, meditated on the flames of his fire.  He had seen no sign of the girl.  It was as if she was dead, and that was as it should be.  He had carefully followed the instructions he had been given: in the midst of battle, as she fought with superhuman strength and skill, one with more strength and skill than she had pulled her head backward and made ready to cut her throat. This was as expected; Helgarda would die a hero's death.  Why, he asked himself, had he not _foreseen_ thatas the sword descended, she would vanish? 

"Skjald!"  He heard Red Erik's mighty voice summoning him.  He took up his sack of herbs and plants and picked his way down from the rocks.  He bowed deeply to Ungarn and his son.  "Master?" 

Ungarn put his arm around Leif's shoulder.  "Give the mage the hair, child," he said, and Leif held out his hand and dropped the golden hair into Skjald's palm. 

"How did this come here?" 

"A white owl came, and she had a parchment with Helgarda's writing, and this hair was in it," said Leif.  "Grandfather read the runes.  He says she is alive." 

The mage sat at Ungarn's feet.  "What may I do for you, Master?"  He wound the hair around his finger; took the parchment and read the runes. 

"Bring her home," ordered Ungarn.  "She lives, she is _somewhere_.  Call the gods, do what you must, but bring her back!" thundered the thane. 

_An evil older than time whispered sibilantly into the old mage's ear.  "What did I ask of thee, Skjald, that thou hast disobeyed me?  She is in a place of power; I cannot reach her there.  If I did, I could not take my place on the Dark Throne. _This may not be!  _Bring her home, Skjald, and I will deal with her myself.  As for thee…" _

_One word rang out.  The old man fell to the ground, gasping, clutching his chest, cried out once hoarsely, as the bones of his spine snapped, reflexed, until the back of his head bowed over to touch his heels; then sprang back, pushing him upright and then bent to the ground, forehead first.  His old thighbones rattled in their worn sockets; his ribs shrank and squeezed his lungs.  He had no breath to cry out, no tears to weep as the blood in his veins turned to vitriol.  Unconsciousness he willed to come to him; he remained aware, and his eyes bulged out of their sockets and reversed.  Horror shook his brains in their bony case.  His heart stopped. _

Leif reached the mage as he stopped struggling.  He turned to his father, his face pale.  "He's all broken," he whispered.  Red Erik knelt, felt for a pulse that was not there. 

"Come, son.  Skjald has died.  We must tell Ungarn." 

"No!" cried Leif.  "He's not dead!  He's broken, something broke his bones!" 

_ "How can you know that?"  _Erik looked at his son.  The child's face was solemn, as it had been when he told them that Helgarda lived.  He put his hand on the child's head.  "Son, can you mend him?  _If he could bring a ship off the ocean onto dry land…if he could see someone who had disappeared… _

Leif looked up at his father.  "I don't know.  I have to think about him."  Erik carried the body of mage back to the cave, Leif following, his gaze inward to another place and time.


	10. Chapter 9 Odin's Child

Chapter Nine    Odin's Child 

The lake was beautiful, sparkling blue in the morning sun.  Near the shore, lily pads bobbed, and frogs sang amongst the huge lily blossoms that dotted the surface of the lake like a pink, gold and white patchwork quilt.  Fish jumped up from the water, scattering rainbow drops.  Out in the middle of the lake, Helgarda thought she saw a pink tentacle flicking bubbles from the surface:  was that the giant squid?

She walked along the shore, towards the lilies.  A sound caught her sharp hearing: somewhere, someone was weeping.  She stood still and let the breeze carry the direction to her.  Over there, sheltered in a little group of shrubs…

Quietly she walked over and looked down from her great height, making no sound.  The little Malfoy boy, Draco, sat bowed over his knees, his cloak wrapped tightly around himself.  He was shivering, and he was crying silently.  She could see the side of his face; he was as pale as cheese, his eyes were squeezed tightly shut, and large tears dripped down his face.

Helgarda parted the bushes, squatted down and gathered the crying child into her lap.  At first he stiffened, then he curled against her like a puppy, and sobbed as if his heart was breaking.  Helgarda ran her fingers through his silky flaxen hair and gently rubbed his back.  The sobs slowed, and then ceased.  Helgarda drew her kerchief from her reticule and began to pat the little boy's face dry.  He looked up at her with red-rimmed eyes.  "You-you're not going to beat me?" he whispered. There was terror in his face, and he trembled.

"Beat you?  Absolutely not!  You shamed yourself yesterday in atonement for your dishonour to a fellow student; surely that's punishment enough!" 

Draco squirmed.  "I'm too old to be sitting in somebody's lap like a baby," he complained. 

Helgarda shifted Draco in her lap; the child weighed nothing. "I don't think you were held enough when you _were_ a baby," she said.  She poked his ribs:  "You're too thin; don't you get enough to eat?" she asked.

"I lose my appetite," said Draco, head down, his chest still heaving occasionally.  He looked up at her.  "I don't understand," he said.  "You caught me setting up Potter.  I'd think you would have beaten me black and blue – you're not a Professor here; all they can do is give detention and extra homework.  You…" His voice trailed off.  He put his face in his hands.  "Everyone hates me," he whispered in a tiny voice.

Helgarda lifted him up and held him against her shoulder.  "You give them good reason to be angry with you," she said.  "Nobody likes to be told they're stupid, and nobody likes cruel pranks played on them.  What has filled you so full of meanness?" 

Draco gave a terrible shudder.  Helgarda put her hand under his chin and looked into his pinched little face.  "What is it?" she asked him.  "Why are you so frightened?  What has happened to you, that you fear so much that you can't eat? "

Draco clung to her shoulder.  "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," he said. 

 "I would believe you," Helgarda said.   Her eyes narrowed.  She was no Seer, but she _felt_ things keenly; something awful had happened to this boy. He had suffered terrible pain and disgrace.  "You've been beaten, many times," she said, and as she watched his face crumple, she _felt _the sorrow and shame surrounding him like a dark cloud.  "Worse," she said, "worse and worse; you've been _raped_.  Odin!" she shouted, and shook her fist at the sky. "Father One-Eye, where were you when this your child was tormented?"

Draco looked up at her, agape.  "Odin," he whispered.

"Yes," said Helgarda.  "If I am not mistaken, Odin the One-Eyed is your protector, and it is time you came to know him."

"How do you know?" the child asked.  He leaned against Helgarda's warm bosom, and the colour began slowly to return to his cheeks.

Helgarda took Draco's hands in her own, and turned them over.  She ran her hand over his skull, and looked at the shape of his ears.  Then she smiled, and began to slowly rock him in her lap.  "I know, I know many things," she murmured.  "I can _feel_ that you are Odin's child.  My father, the great thane Ungarn Helmansson, is Odin's son as well – and you have his hands and his ears, Draco."

Draco's round blue-grey eyes almost popped from his head.  _"Your _father's hands and ears?" he squeaked.  "Everyone tells me I look just like _my _father!"

Helgarda smiled, rocking him.  "Yes, I met your father last night, you do look very much like him.  Your father, then, is also a child of Odin."  She looked down at the long blonde eyelashes, now drooping heavy-lidded over the blue-grey eyes.  "Draco, does your father know what you have suffered?"

The boy sat up straight in Helgarda's lap.  He looked up at her, then down.  "He's the one who does it," he whispered.

Helgarda clasped the boy against her shoulder.  Tears welled up in her eyes and ran down her face; she began to wail unashamedly.  Draco's eyes filled and he hung onto the half-giantess' neck and cried out his pain and misery.

The ground shook as heavy footsteps approached them.  Helgarda looked up to see Hagrid bending over them incredulously.  "Wot's this?  Both of yer, cryin' her hearts out?  Wot's happened?"  Ponderously he lowered himself to the ground, and lifted both Helgarda and the boy in her lap into his arms.  He rested his bearded cheek against Helgarda's golden head.  "Now, now, sweet lady, tell me wot's happened."  He carried them over to his cottage and set them on the steps, then pulled a huge red and white checked kerchief out of his vest pocket and gave it to Helgarda.

Sniffling, Draco climbed out of Helgarda's lap.  He looked up at the half-giant.  "Hagrid, you won't tell?  Please, don't tell anyone you saw me crying."

"He has reason to cry," said Helgarda, wiping her eyes.  With a great honking and snorting, she blew the stuffiness out of her nose.  Draco was making use of Helgarda's kerchief, which she had put into his hand.

"Come on in, then, both of yer.  Me kettle's boilin', and there's scones. Everythin' looks better over a cup o'tea."  He stood up, put his arm around Helgarda and held out his hand to Draco.

"Er, Hagrid, are your scones like your rock cakes?" the boy asked, knowing the half-giant's usual unfortunate baking results.  He looked up at Helgarda:  "You have to be a giant to get your teeth into them."

"The house-elves from t'castle gave 'em to me, they're soft enough for the likes of ye," said Hagrid, as he opened the door to the cottage and ushered them inside.  Helgarda looked around at the large, cosy room, noticing the sturdy table, the great oaken cupboards, the two big armchairs by the fire, the heavy iron pots and skillets hung on the walls.

"What a fine house!" she remarked.  "It's so friendly and homelike. It reminds of my father's Hall, the rooms where our family lives – well, where we used to live."

"Make yerselves at home," boomed Hagrid, busy with a large teapot. He poured steaming tea into three enormous mugs and put them on the table, passing a milk pitcher and a honey-jar to Helgarda.  Then, he brought over a great wooden board on which reposed a tremendous chunk of cheese, a jar of jam and a crock of clotted cream.  Finally, Hagrid put a basket filled with the Hogwarts house-elves' famous raisin scones and the small, sweet red and yellow apples from the castle's orchards in the middle of the table.  "Eat, boy," the half-giant said.

Tentatively, Draco took a piece of cheese.  It was the fresh, soft white cheese served at breakfast time at Hogwarts.  He bit into it, and his mouth watered instantly.  The first piece of cheese was followed quickly by another piece of cheese, and in short order the boy had helped himself to a scone and was slathering it with cream and jam.  His eyes closed as he took a big bite and experienced the flavours of crumbly scone, thick cream, and cherry jam all together.

Helgarda smiled; the child felt safe enough to nourish himself.  She took a big swallow of the hot sweet tea and a mouthful of scone.  Chewing contentedly, she looked over at Hagrid, who was making an odd sandwich of a scone, a large slab of cheese and another scone.  He looked at her and chuckled.  "Simple food's the best, ain't it?" he said.

"Yes, it certainly is," replied Helgarda.  "You remind me so much of my brother Erik.  He loves to eat two oatcakes with a great hunk of cheese in between, just as you do.  You'd like him, Hagrid.  He's a very brave man, but he's very gentle and loving." 

Hagrid reddened.   He reached for Helgarda's hand, and clasped it between his two big, warm paws.  "I tries to be gentle," he said, "and I surely am loving."  He looked down at the tabletop, then back up at the beautiful face in front of him.  Helgarda was smiling, and her cheeks were a lovely pink.  She squeezed his hand.

"You're a good man, Hagrid," she stated.  "I am comfortable with you, as I am with my family, and I feel at home here, in your house."  She moved a little closer to him.  Draco ignored them; he was busily spooning jam onto his second scone.  An apple core lay on his napkin.  

Helgarda noticed that Fang had sat himself down next to the boy and rested his head on his knee.  Every now and then, Draco fed the dog a little piece of cheese.  _I think he is happy, like any boy who feels safe and protected. _

Hagrid poured more tea into Helgarda's mug.  "I've lived here a very long time," he rumbled.  "I made it comfortable for meself, and it's a cosy place.  But it's big even for me," and he gestured to a curtained alcove.

"What's in there?" asked Helgarda.

"That's me chamber," said Hagrid.  "I built the wardrobes, an' the chest o'drawers and the bedstead too."  He looked at Helgarda.  "There's plenty o'room to share," he said.  "I would be honoured if ye would share it with me, Miss Helgarda."

Helgarda smiled.  How lovely, that he could ask her straightforwardly to share his dwelling, not beat around the bush with fancy words and silly ideas!  She reached for his hand and took it between hers.

"Hagrid, I would like to stay with you," she said.  "Everyone at the castle has made me welcome, and they gave me a beautiful room and everything I could want – but your house feels like _home._"  She gave his hand a good squeeze.  "And _you_ feel like home, too."  She leaned over and kissed his cheek.  The half-giant blushed bright red.  His big square white teeth gleamed in his dark beard, and he leaned over to give her a kiss in return.

"Oh, yuck, you two are _snogging," _commented Draco, looking up from the remains of his feast.

Both Hagrid and Helgarda laughed.  "There's people what are happy with each other, there is, boy, and they likes to show it," said Hagrid.  "It's good to show someone ye care for how ye feel."

"Well, just don't start kissing _me," _stated the boy. "I've had all the hugging I can take today."  He wiped his hands and face with his napkin.  "Thank you, Hagrid.  I haven't had a decent meal in I don't know how long."  He hopped off his chair and walked around to Helgarda.  "Thank you, Miss Helgarda.  I'm not used to all this kindness, but I think I could get accustomed to it."  He took her hand, bent over and kissed her fingers, just as he had seen his father do in polite company.

"That's a good boy," said Hagrid.  "Ye come and visit me, Draco, whenever ye want to.  Don't sit alone like a stone when ye're sad."

"I will, and thanks," answered Draco.  He looked at the two half-giants.  "I'm going to do some thinking," he said.  With a last pat to Fang, he left the cottage, closing the door after himself.

Helgarda helped Hagrid to clear the table, and side-by-side they did the washing-up, chatting easily.  Then, they sat down in front of the fire, and talked of the separate lives they had led up until this moment, when like called to like, and their hearts reached out to each other.


	11. Chapter 10 Truth Serum

**_Chapter 10  Truth Serum_**
    
    "Is that all she can remember?"  Albus Dumbledore swivelled around in his desk chair, lifting papers and books.  Finally, he found his platypus-shaped silver bowl of sweets.  "Lemon sherbet, anyone?"
    
    Minerva McGonagall shook her head.  "No thanks, Albus.  Yes, I met her yesterday as she was walking back from visiting with Hagrid.  She wanted to tell me something important, and I surmised she had remembered how she came to Hogwarts."
    
    Snape stood up, pushing back his chair, and paced over to the window, then back to the Headmaster's desk.  "Well?" he demanded.  "What did she say, what does she know?"
    
    Minerva sighed.  "Oh, Severus, stop pacing; you make me dizzy.  She's tried and tried to remember, and she says she can 'feel' the truth somewhere in her mind, but she can't bring it to the fore.  I know I've disagreed with your suggestion of using Veritaserum, but I'm beginning to think it's the only way to help her.  That, and a consultation with the Runes Mistress."
    
    Snape smirked at her.  "That I should live to hear you back off on _anything,_ oh, most stubborn of Gryffindors! "
    
    McGonagall scowled at him.  "At least I have the courage to back off when I'm wrong, unlike some overbearing Slytherins I know!"
    
    "How typical of you to _have to be right_ about everything – including, I suppose, your recommendation that our resident Druid, crackpot that she is, put her two Knuts' worth into an already difficult situation!"
    
    "Crackpot!  You should hear _yourself_, Severus, you should just _hear_ yourself, self-righteously complaining because everything isn't YOUR way!"  She smiled her most feline smile; an invisible tail lashed from side to side.  Her eyes narrowed.  "Perhaps you're afraid of losing control…"
    
    "How _dare you!" _bellowed the Potions Master, swirling his cloak about himself in agitated folds.  "If it weren't for me—"
    
    The Headmaster held up his hand. "Please, please, both of you stop squabbling!  We have so much to do and, I fear, not much time in which to do it.  Severus, you can make a dose of Veritaserum for the, erm, large young lady, can't you?"
    
    Snape controlled himself with difficulty.  "I daresay I can.  I will need her weight and her pulse count and some other information.  I shall notify Madam Pomfrey of my requirements."  He looked at his colleague with undisguised superiority:  "As you very well know, _Professor_ McGonagall, given the correct information, I can prepare a potion for any recipient."
    
    The Transfiguration Professor stood up.  'I've had about all the snark I can take for one day," she stated, glaring at Snape.  "Oh, and you _gentlemen_ might be interested to know that Miss Helgarda has decided to stay with Hagrid, in his cottage, for the remainder of her time at Hogwarts.  She feels very much at home with him."  She smiled sweetly and swept out of the door.
    
    "Ah, me," mused Dumbledore.  "It's very sweet, indeed, but there will be some tears and sorrow at their parting."
    
    Snape sniffed audibly. "I _knew_ there was something wrong with that potion." 
    
    ***

"He's not so terrible," stated Poppy Pomfrey, as she assisted Helgarda to step onto a flat, round stone.  "He just likes everyone to think he is, but if you were to choose someone to back you up in a difficult situation, you couldn't choose one better."  She waved her wand over a mirror standing on a shelf; characters appeared on it.  "Hmm, you _are_ a big girl, but in proportion."  She wrote something on a piece of parchment, and then gave it to her aide, Brigit, who walked up to the fireplace, threw a handful of powder into the flames, bent over and shouted, "Snape!" in a strong Irish brogue.

The mediwitch sat Helgarda down on a chair. "Brigit will give your information to the Professor, so he can compound the potion precisely for you," she remarked.  "Now, just a few things more—" some wand waving and note taking, and then she was finished.

"What will happen now?  I mean, what will happen to me?  Headmaster Dumbledore told me that Veritaserum will help me to remember what happened when I came here.  Does he mean that I will actually live it again?"  She shuddered.

"No, dear, not at all.  It will be like recalling anything else you might have thought you'd forgotten, and there are no ill effects." She patted Helgarda's hand, and motioned Sister Brigit over.

"I told himself what the lady's weight is, and her heart rate, and he says to come down now," stated the red-haired Druid.  She looked up at Helgarda:  'Ye're such a fine girl, 'tis pity that someone wishes ye ill."  A small smile played upon her face: "I'll wager ye're fierce in battle."

"I am," said Helgarda. The Celts had a great reputation for warfare; doubtless Brigit herself was a formidable fighter.  She followed Brigit out of the hospital ward and along the corridors and moving staircases, on their way to Professor Snape's laboratory.  "Sister Brigit, I've only gotten a glimpse of Professor Snape.  He looks thin and ill, and very grumpy, but is he as terrible as the children say he is?"

"Och, t'in he is, and grumpy indeed, as if his britches pinched him in the arse.  He's nasty to the children, but the smart ones figure him out straightaway: work hard and learn well is all he asks."  She snorted; she had often thought that a sound kick in said arse would do the man a world of good.  Then again, he might just need a good shagging…she looked up at Helgarda.  "There's some men what wouldn't know a blessing if it hit them in the face.  But his heart is good.  Don't be feared o'him, dear.  He has vowed to help ye."

They wound their way down a long, stone corridor, its walls bedewed with damp.  At the end stood a heavy oaken door with wide black iron bands.  It was shut, but as they approached, it swung inwards with a screech that set Helgarda's teeth on edge.  She ducked her head as they went through the doorway, and looked around.  _So this was Professor Snape's workroom…it reminded her of Skjald's workroom in his small hut: crowded with all kinds of strange things which no-one was allowed to touch.  There was a difference, though: Skjald's workroom was dusty and draped with cobwebs; Professor Snape's laboratory was immaculate.  Glass and pottery vessels gleamed; phials and flasks stood ranged on shelves, their many-coloured contents shining like jewels.  A still operated on a tabletop, reminding Helgarda of her mother's still, out of which dripped akvavit, liquid fire…_

The Potions Master stood at the side of his workbench.  He came forward and bowed.  "Severus Snape," he pronounced.  "Please sit down."  He indicated a chair with a small table next to it.  "Sister Brigit, you may go," he said, and the aide left the laboratory, almost colliding with Professor McGonagall.

The Transfigurations Professor carried a small silver bowl.  She sat down on a chair next to Helgarda and patted her shoulder.  "There's nothing to worry about," she said.  "At the worst, you won't remember much.  At the best, you'll remember everything as if you were watching someone else.  This is a Pensieve – a place to store memories, so we can look at them carefully, once you've remembered them."

Helgarda sat as still as a stone, staring at Snape.  He had only said a few words to her, but his _voice_ – he had the most beautiful voice she had ever heard:  warm, smooth, and soft, like the lovely fur of a seal.   If seal fur had a voice, she decided, it would be Snape's. She drew herself up, straight and tall.  "Ungarn!  Red Erik! Helgarda suddenly shouted.  "I'm ready," she said in a small voice.

Professor Snape approached her with a small goblet in his hand.  "Drink this," he said.  "You will not notice any difference in how you feel, but when we ask you questions, you will begin to remember."  He handed her the goblet, and she took a small sip of the liquid within it.  It tasted faintly sweet, faintly of the peppermint that grew wild around her mother's kitchen garden, and faintly of something else, something like an herb but none she could name.  She drained the goblet and handed it back to the Potions Master.  

The tall man pulled over a chair and sat down in front of her.  He held out his hands, and she put her hand in his.  His fingers probed her pulse.  "We begin," he said, and Helgarda's heart beat a little faster.  "What is the first thing you remember?" he asked.

Helgarda answered immediately. "I was lying face down on a bed of autumn leaves, bright colours," she said.  "I was surprised that I was not lying in mud, and that it was not raining, as it had been before I – before the barbarian made to cut my throat."  Shocked, she stopped; she had not remembered that before, but she could see the heavy blade descending towards her throat, feel the hand pulling her braid cruelly to tip her head backwards.

Professor McGonagall held tightly to Helgarda's left hand, and she pressed the woman's fingers.  She looked expectantly at Professor Snape.  "Describe what happened before the barbarian made to cut your throat," he asked.

"I had just dispatched several warriors, and I drew my battle dagger.  My sword, Storm King, is heavy, but I can wield it with one hand.  Three of the barbarians were circling around me – when that happens, one is always afraid, one is foolhardy, and one must beware of the third.  I moved lightly around, testing, feinting with my sword, to see which was which, when I felt a hand seize my braid and pull my head back.  I – I dropped my dagger, yes, and shifted my weight, ready to spin and throw my attacker over my shoulder.  I saw a sword arm rise, and then—and then---" She shook her head.  "It's all over foggy and misty, and I can't see."

Snape leaned forward, his hands clasped around her right hand.  "Close your eyes," he commanded.  "Now – what do you hear?"  Helgarda closed her eyes and tilted her head, listening.  Then, her eyes sprang open with surprise.  "Chanting. I hear chanting."

"Can you make out the words?"  Snape drew closer to the giantess and watched her face carefully. Her eyes moved quickly from side to side as if she were watching an enactment of the scene.  Professor McGonagall rested her wand lightly against Helgarda's brow; the giantess hardly noticed that wraiths of silver smoke curled down the wand and into the silver bowl on the witch's lap.

She was silent for a moment.  "Is it – no, I thought it was a saga I know, but I don't understand the words.  It's some other tongue.  It hurts my head to listen to it."  She withdrew her hands and dropped her head into them; the strain was considerable.

"Concentrate," the soft, warm voice urged her.  "Can you feel anything?"

"Yes…it's cold, there's a cold wind blowing – something's pushing me…" She sat up, her face pale, perspiration beading her brow.  "I can't, I can't remember any more…" She looked at Professor Snape in desperation:  "I'm sorry…"

"We have a Pensieve full of your recollections to analyse," stated the Potions Master."  He released Helgarda's hand.  "I suggest that you rest for a time, before you meet with the Runes Mistress."  He held her arm as she stood up, scanning her face for signs of disorientation or dizziness.

Professor McGonagall handed the Pensieve to Snape.  "I wish both you and Albus good luck with this," she said.  "I'm going to take the young lady up to the Tea Parlour and make sure she eats something.  Dame Angharad will meet us there."

As they turned to leave the laboratory, Helgarda turned around.  "Professor Snape," she said, "thank you.  I know you will help me."  The man nodded and turned back to the silver bowl.

***

_I shall do this to thee and more; thou shalt suffer grievously for thy disobedience! Art thou ready to do my bidding?_  The Mage swam slowly up to consciousness.  There was not a part of him that did not ache.  Dimly he felt his heart begin to beat again, and his blood began to move through his limbs.  He lived; he had not been killed – yet.  

_Master, I shall do as you ask.  I shall find where the maid is, and bring her back._


End file.
